Red Alert
by C. Holywell-Black
Summary: Sequel to "Zapped". How will the world react to people with powers? Contains language, violence, mature themes and major mind-f*cking. That's only the start of the fun.
1. Glossophobia

_Okay, this is a brief recap for you guys who have just joined us, or have forgotten everything so far._

_There was a storm that granted people caught in powers (or killed them) and this got people wanted by the government – equals big trouble. This included L (aka __**The Mentalist**__, a mind-reader), B (aka __**Stratagem**__, an über-fast learner of others' powers), Near (aka __**Soothsayer**__, a psychic), Mello (aka __**Slaughter**__, with super-strength), Matt (aka __**Redd**__, an immortal), Light (aka __**The Conman**__, very persuasive), Misa (aka __**Ember**__, fire-controller), Matsuda (aka __**Guineamorph**__, a guinea-pig shapeshifter)._

_Others included a pathology student called Elisabeth (__**Volta**__, a technopath), her teenage brother Ben (__**Motion**_, _a telekinetic), his best friend Lara (__**Artemis**__, a communicator of animals), Tessa (__**Aeon**__, a time-traveler), Rose (__**Spektre**__, a ghost-seer) and Emilia (__**Swift**__, a girl with super-speed). They formed the __**Zapped.**_

_Kiyomi Takada (__**Stormeye**__, a hydrokinetic), angry at being isolated by other humans, set out to kill all those without powers, but the others stopped her, at a cost. Elisabeth died, and L committed suicide in her footsteps. They were brought back when Tessa changed the past, but all of them ended up in jail say for Matt, who got taken to the morgue. Emilia's mother, __**Clarissa**__, a government operative, put them there. Light erased his father __**Soichiro's **__memory of his power._

_A girl secretly stood up to Takada, known only as __**Claire**__. It is believed by L and Elisabeth she too has powers, but she was attacked by Takada and ended up in a coma. Her friend, __**M. Rockwell**__, a taxi driver from London, was present when she woke up again._

_Then Matt broke the Zapped out of prison._

_I think that's everything put briefly. Enjoy._

* * *

><p>The prison breakout of one of the world's most infamous groups was all over the news, even one month on. This was one time that L was extremely pleased for television and overall media coverage. The press and internet forums were so goddamn nosy that rumors of their location were difficult to discern from lies and the truth. Meanwhile, there were thirteen of them all hiding in one house, with one common goal: bust those with powers out to the public.<p>

Emilia, petite and silvery-blonde, had been working like a little Trojan, driven by the anger at her mother, Agent Clarissa Deaver. With the help of B and Rose, she was busy mounting a campaign that would hit the government right where it hurt – their image. Nobody would even imagine that such notorious criminals were using sophisticated technology in a pleasant little house not far from where they had been apprehended.

Elisabeth was developing a series of disguises whilst keeping an eye on everyone's health. Her previous occupation having been a unique kind of school nurse at Wammy's House, she was desperate to sate her desire to aid those who required medical assistance. Her most recent patient had been Near when he'd walked into a door whilst having a vision.

Matsuda had been using a friendly contact at Interpol to establish the international political reaction their breakout. According to a man named Ide, things were heating up the longer that the Zapped went undiscovered. There were worries of terrorism and an attempted uprising. Matsuda had convinced Ide that their only aim was to get the rest of those with powers together so that they could prevent another Stormeye-like incident.

Ben and Lara had been the safest choice to put out into public, retrieving things like food supplies and newspapers. They had been perceived by their neighbors (much to Mello's rancor) as a young American student couple who had moved in together. They were the eyes of the Zapped. In a community that appeared very close-knit, they had had to remain low-profile and keep their story simple lest their lies catch up with them.

Mello had been busy shifting furniture around just so that he had something to do. That, and researching curious events with the others looking for symptoms of people with powers. Only the day before they had found a five-year-old girl who was being praised for saving another's life because she just happened to be able to beat up a mugger. When they had attempted further research other than that in the paper, the girl was said to not have existed. Lara had almost cried at that. She had only been five years old.

Another possibility of finding a child of the storm had been a man who had supposedly run through a wall, just appearing the other side of a shop wall unscathed, with no damage to the wall itself. The man had been found in an alleyway bleeding to death. According to the woman who found him (that Ben had spoken to posing as a journalist) his last words had been, 'but the children will save me'.

Everything felt so wrong, hiding in the shadows and just _searching_ futilely. There was nothing anyone could do without exposing themselves and truly endangering the rest. They had Near looking into the future for anything he could, keeping Tessa out of his way in case she screwed with his visions. They couldn't run forever, and they knew it. Had they any chance of doing so, they still would not have done. They would hide, and then strike. People out there needed to know about others with powers, and learn to accept them.

Watari and Roger were looking after Wammy's kids with as much commitment as humanly possible. Those that offered problems, such as Iago, Raphael, Trey and Wolsey, were warned of their being sent to an ordinary orphanage should they become an issue. There were some things that they could not avoid, like if they tried to sneak out, but as for telephone and internet communication, that was no problem.

It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what felt different about that day over a month after they had broken out of prison and evaded government forces. What could be said? All any of them would dare to think was that the atmosphere differed from the usual lethargy.

It was approximately four o'clock in the afternoon when Matt came rushing in with his laptop, placing it carefully down on the desk in the middle of the room and speaking up louder than the combined sounds of buzzing, humming and low chatting.

"Guys," he piped up. "You really have got to see this live online stream."

**XXX**

The physiotherapist known as Dr. Kelsey attempted to support her patient. It had been one month since the young woman's unexpected and puzzling consciousness after being in a coma that should have made her a vegetable. Technically, she could have been. She could not speak, could only move only a little and never looked like she understood what was going on, despite her friend's disagreement.

"She understands you!" M. Rockwell had protested vehemently. "Look, her eyes moved! She knows exactly what's going on, she's not stupid!"

"I know it's difficult to process, that she may never recover fully," Kelsey sighed, "but we have to accept that her life will never be the same."

"Her mouth moves," M said through gritted teeth. "She can talk!"

"She makes incoherent noises," Kelsey snapped. "I know others who have entered a similar state to Claire, and they are the only sounds she ever makes. She does not _talk_." She glanced at the patient resting on her. "Look at her, Miss Rockwell. She can't even stand by herself. She has made progress, but not enough to even use a wheelchair unaided."

"This is the first time she's properly walked," M said. "You've got to give her a chance. I read about this – when people wake up from comas, they get all these painful bedsores and their muscles are really weak. If you're not giving her any chance, she's screwed, isn't she?"

"You see, I've even got to support her head sometimes," Kelsey muttered. "She's tired. Standing up supported has been way too much for her. I'm putting her back to bed."

"Don't!" M shouted suddenly.

"Why on earth not?" She paused.

"Sit her down on the bed, sitting upright, and then I'll spend some time with her," M told the physiotherapist. It was a moment before Dr. Kelsey acquiesced, and then she left them alone. M smiled at her friend. "Come on, C. Come on, I know you're in there. You know precisely what I'm saying, don't you?"

She reached for a pencil on the table next to the bed and threw it at Claire's head.

"Come on. Pick it up. Pick it up, or I'm going to have to throw it at you again," she warned.

Claire's eyes were full of irritation, frustration and despair. She so desperately wanted to be able to move, to retrieve the pencil from where it lay by her knees, but she couldn't. Dr. Kelsey was right; standing for the first time in over a month had been extremely tiring. M picked up the pencil and, following her word, threw it at her head again. She could feel words forming on her tongue, that almost-growl that she emitted when she wanted to express herself angrily.

She knew the words she wanted to say, unpleasant as they were.

"It's going to happen again," M threatened. She did it again and again.

"F-f-" Claire tried.

"That's it," M grinned. "Go on, say it. You can."

"F-f-"

It was that pencil hitting her squarely in the forehead that finally did it.

"F-fuck _off_!" she spat. She stared at her friend, partially hardly believing she'd been able to do it, partly surprised those had been her first words since beginning to learn to speak again.

M's mobile went off. Being an internet-linked phone, it apparently alerted her to whenever something interesting was happening online. She checked her phone and her eyes widened.

"Oh. That's… weird," she remarked uncertainly.

"H-h-here," Claire blurted out. "H-here."

"Look, it's an online stream from the Prime Minister-"

**XXX**

"No warning, nothing," Matt explained. "Just suddenly, _ding_! A live streamed video online of a speech by the British Prime Minister. There hadn't even been any buildup, no rumors, no political speculation, and now we've got this stringy bloke acting all… well, pretty much near _contrite_."

"Listen…" Elisabeth murmured.

What was said next by the man onscreen made them all freeze.

"Did he just say what I think he said?" Mello gasped.

"Rewind, rewind," Emilia coaxed Matt. He did so.

"_No longer shall any member of this government, or any other as part of the United Nations, oppose those named the 'children of the storm', one group famously known for their resistance and jailed. They have now officially been cleared of any charges put against them and have been granted a clean slate in this new society of the power-bearing and ordinary. It has also been decided that we shall encourage countries against this to reconsider," _the Prime Minister declared. _"Welcome to this brave new world, Children, and live your lives as well as you can!"_

Jaws hung open for a long time, when nobody said anything. Then Near spoke.

"All United Nations countries accepting Children," he murmured. "How many nations is that?"

"One hundred and ninety-three," Rose whispered. When she received bemused looks from the others, she shrugged. "Pub quiz trivia."

"Cleared of all charges!" Matsuda exulted. "I can't believe it!"

"Neither can I," B muttered. He was shaking his head. "There's something really, truly wrong with this."

"Where is this coming from?" L asked quietly. They jumped at the sound of his voice, having practically forgotten he was there. "Why would a _government _of all the potential institutions suddenly admit that their enemy was right all along?"

"But… but we can _leave_," Misa pointed out. "This can't be a bad thing."

"I can't wait to breathe fresh air again," mumbled Tessa. "We're free."

"Fine," B sighed. "We can go, but… but I'm telling you, there's something up with this. You mark my words, the moment we think we're safe, trouble will stalk us again."

Regardless of B's warning, all thirteen of them packed up their equipment and half an hour later, with suitcases and computer bags in hand, pushed their front door open and walked out into the bright new sunlight, into a street where people could gaze as openly as they wanted.

* * *

><p><em>After much coercion, I've decided to put up the first chapter of "Red Alert", "Zapped"'s sequel, earlier than anticipated. Hoping that you're all looking forward to this new story, and you've decided to keep on reading the sequel.<em>

_Please review to let me know how you think the start went!_

_C._


	2. Aviophobia

The doctors of the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester all agreed on one thing. The patient in Intensive Care, in the last room at the end of the corridor, was not normal. Every single physiotherapist, neurological consultant and attending nurse that had tended to Claire Riddle had returned to the staff room looking ever so slightly disturbed and saying that they didn't want to work with the girl who struggled to move anymore.

A psychologist by the name of Dr. Frederick Johann overheard a couple of nurses discussing the strange Miss Riddle. They spoke of how they had both tried to communicate, and although few words had been said, they somehow knew exactly what Claire was thinking of them. Those eyes of hers, blue-green and supposed to be empty… it was like they were channeling all of Claire's remaining life, watching them and knowing exactly their faults.

Like she was staring into their souls.

Johann smiled to himself. He liked a challenge. For everybody else, people like this Riddle girl presented a problem, as doctors didn't want to heal them, or even go near them. For Frederick Johann, it was just another spirit he had to break.

**XXX**

"Thomas McElroy, you are being formally suspended from the practice of law for two weeks due to improper relations with a client," Justice Banks said dryly. "And may I add that your conduct, when you have such promise, is an absolute disgrace?"

"I know, I know," Tom McElroy murmured, "I'm such a bad, bad boy."

"Should you wish to remain on your way to becoming a barrister, you will leave my courtroom right now," Banks snapped, waving him away in disgust. She glanced once at the young man stepping down from the dock and rolled her eyes. How could such a bright gentleman behave so appallingly? That, and he had no remorse for his actions either.

Tom was met by his younger brother, Drew, outside the courtroom as he pulled on his long dark coat (despite the sunshine outside). Drew fixed Tom with a long, serious stare.

"So that's it? You had sex with your homicidal client and you only got a two-week-long suspension?" Drew said disbelievingly. They descended the front steps of the courthouse toward Drew's red Toyota. "That's… no, seriously, Tom, I have a question. How do you _do _it? If Rick Hayward had even thought about doing that, he'd have his balls grilled by a judge. He'd get struck off."

"That would be because Rick Hayward is a prick who needs his balls grilled," Tom snickered. "It's only someone who knows a judge's home phone number that gets away with doing something anyone else would get burned for."

"Why are you a lawyer? You have no morals."

"That's precisely why. I'm a bloodsucking parasite. Honestly, it's fantastic," he chuckled. "Personally, I'd rather be perceived for who I am warts and all as a suspended lawyer than a _librarian._"

"There's nothing wrong with being a librarian," Drew mumbled defensively, pushing his Ray-Ban glasses further up his nose as he opened the driver door. "It's not like I'm sad enough to run a… I don't know… an _abattoir_."

"I don't know," Tom shrugged. "A bit of blood and guts might be good for you."

"We're not having this conversation again," Drew said. "We're discussing _your _actions, we're discussing how Mum and Dad are going to kill you for getting a suspension, we're discussing how the hell you get away with being such a jerk-"

"Well, you know what they say. I guess I got the looks _and _I got the brains."

"That's not funny, Tom." The two got into the car. Once inside, Drew turned the key in the ignition.

"Lighten up," Drew grinned. "I'm not dead, I've not been fired, I'm not on drugs, I'm not an alcoholic, I've not killed anyone and I got laid." He threw his hands in the air. "So, technically, what was _bad _about this situation? At all?"

"Are you really so dense that you need me to tell you the answer to that?" Drew sighed. "In fact, forget it, forget it… I need a drink. Let's just get you back to your place and then I'm going home."

"To _Louisa_?" Tom teased.

"You're so immature. And no, not to Louisa, thanks very much," Drew grumbled. "I broke up with her. She was cheating on me."

"Ouch. Sorry, man. Say, does that mean Louisa's single now?"

"Just get out of this car right now," Drew growled, turning a corner toward the exit.

"I'm joking – ouch, shit!" He glared out of the windscreen. They had screeched to a halt as another car had come in the opposite direction. "Who's driving that crock of shit…?"

"Teru Mikami."

"Oh, man, fucking Mikami. You think I'm an asshole? He's the king of them. Like Peter fucking Perfect." He glowered at Mikami's car, sticking his head out the window. "Learn to drive that bathtub, you dick!"

"Tom, leave it, Jesus," scolded Drew.

"What a twat," his brother grumbled.

"He's a nice guy, Tom," Drew insisted, "nicer than you can be sometimes. At least he has scruples and doesn't seek to have sex with everything that moves."

"That makes me sound like some kind of horny bastard with no care for your basic morals," Tom said. He caught Drew's eye and nodded slowly. "Touché."

For the remainder of journey, not much was said, and not much was needed to be said. Tom was anticipating the reaction of their parents, one being a hugely successful senior solicitor and the other being a devoted, family-orientated homemaker. Whenever this was explained to a stranger, the stranger assumed that it was the McElroys' father, Harold, who was the senior solicitor, when actually it was their mother, Jean. Harold McElroy was a cookery-loving clean freak that had been the one making their nativity play costumes when the boys were only seven and five years old. Jean McElroy was just… terrifying.

Drew stopped the car outside Tom's newly-bought house. The two young men waited in the car for a moment, then clambered out. The sun warmed the path to the front door and Drew put a hand on his older brother's shoulder. There were only two years separating them, yet often it felt like much more than that, and like their ages were switched and Tom was younger.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tom muttered. "Let's go inside. I'll make you some coffee before you head home. Couldn't make you go on back to your empty apartment with no sustenance, could I?"

He dropped his coat on a peg by the front door and headed towards the kitchen. It wasn't a huge house, but being a lawyer paid well if you were good and he didn't have to share with someone to pay the rent. Drew followed him inside and was about to sit down when he decided to be courteous.

"Here, give me your jacket, I'll hang it up for you," he suggested. "Knowing you, you'll just chuck it to one side and it'll get crumpled for when you next wear it."

"No," Tom refused. "I'll keep it on."

"Come on, man, it's really warm in here."

"I said _no_, Drew," Tom responded firmly. He went to the shelves and removed two mugs for coffee. He had already switched the kettle on for the water.

"Is there something wrong-?"

"I just don't want to take my jacket off is all," Tom snapped. "Is that too difficult for you to understand?"

Drew frowned. "Tom-"

"Get away from me."

"Okay, there really _is _something wrong, isn't there?" Drew deduced. He rushed over to his brother and fought to get his jacket off of him. "Give it to me, Tom, for Christ's sake! What's up with removing your – jacket…?"

He had finally managed to yank off Tom's suit jacket and was now staring at the bloody mangled mess that was the back of his brother's previously spotless white shirt. The weird thing was that the skin exposed by the blood-soaked rips in his shirt were only smeared with scarlet, not sliced open or even scraped a little. He could only gape in disbelief.

"What… happened…?"

Tom punched the wall angrily. "Why did you have to find out?"

"Tell me what's going on!"

"Stay back."

"Stay – _what_?" He staggered backwards as there was a weird wriggling under Tom's skin where his shoulder blades were. He groaned in pain whilst the clear white skin split open and pure white began to grow out sideways. Fluffy white feathers were emerging. What felt like hours later, but could have only been about ten seconds, a glorious pair of white feathered wings had sprouted from the spot where Tom's shirt had gotten torn up.

"You're…"

"A Child, I know." Tom was watching his reaction with serious (for once) green eyes.

"But they're accepted now!" Drew tried to comfort him. "They've been made public, they're okay with everyone."

"You idiot. You think that's really the case?" He rolled his eyes. "I have no choice. I'm going to have to look for those other power groups, the ones-"

"The ones who got arrested?" Drew choked out. "Are you insane?"

Tom smirked and gestured to his wings. "What do you think, little brother?"

**XXX**

The neighbors who caught sight of thirteen people leaving one small house widened their eyes in disbelief. Had they been there all that time? And of course, they recognized their faces, but where from…? Nosy as they were, they still couldn't quite pinpoint the familiarity. Then one removed his shirt. Underneath he wore a blue one-piece suit, almost like a costume – with a lightning bolt emblem on the left breast.

"A child of the storm," one woman whispered, amazed.

"_The _children of the storm!" gasped another neighbor, recognizing the face of Beyond Birthday and gawking.

"Still think it's a good idea to leave?" B muttered.

"We can go back to the orphanage now," L told him. "It's better."

"I don't trust that Prime Minister any further than I can throw him," Rose said in an undertone. "Something about this doesn't feel right to me at all."

"Are you kidding?" Lara beamed. "Look at this place! Doesn't it feel great to be out in open air again, not having to worry about being arrested or anything? Just _living_…"

"One month ago she wasn't quite so optimistic," Mello chuckled. "Surely this is a good thing? Who cares if a politician looks slimy? _All _politicians look slimy. I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to go home."

Matt grinned at Tessa. "Race you there."

"You know you're going down!" Tessa yelled, running after him.

"Hey! Tessa! Matt!" Elisabeth called after the two. They stopped and looked back at her. Finally, she just smiled and relaxed. "Nothing. You two have fun, okay?" She glanced at L. "I never thought I'd be able to say that again. I didn't want to tell the others, but I thought this was going to be some Martin Luther King kind of thing, with years of campaigning and hoping and stuff, but… you know what?"

"What?"

She put an arm around his waist. "I like this route to freedom much, much better than my idea."

"So do I."

"You know we've still got to find all of those people with powers, don't you? They need to know we're not so far away, that they're not alone," she pointed out. She exhaled slowly. "One month in that place… just a month… it makes you appreciate how free we are now."

"Oi!" Rose shouted further up the street. She jerked her head sideways. "We don't know about you, but we're heading off home!"

"Race you," Emilia teased Light.

"That's just not fair."

"Coward," she taunted and sped off, leaving him to walk back with Misa, who had not forgotten his actions at the aquarium over a month before and was currently giving him the cold shoulder.

"We're safe, and none of us ended up in hospital!" Elisabeth laughed. "This is unbelievable!"

"I understand," L said, but something was niggling away at the back of his brain.

Hospital? What about that word made him think he had forgotten something very important?

* * *

><p><em>Hoping you guys enjoyed the latest chapter, plus the introduction of two new OCs (I know, they do just keep coming from my brain), Tom and Drew McElroy. For your information, Tom is 22 and Drew is 20.<em>

_Thanks to those of you who have already reviewed; they help me get chapters out because then I put this story on priority and write more for it._

_C._


	3. Acousticophobia

"Okay, okay, repeat after me," M encouraged. "My name is Claire."

"My name is… Care."

"No, no, _Claire_, with that 'l' sound," M said. "You always struggle with that. Come on, you're nearly there. That's pretty much the only sound you can't make anymore." She sighed. "Oh, well. At least you're picking up on your movements again. And you're going to be able to stand alone soon, I can feel it."

"I need time," she mumbled.

"You don't have time," M scolded. "Life's not going to wait for you to heal, Claire. It's going to move on, and you need to get out there. I know you want to. Sometimes, just before I leave, I catch you out of the corner of my eye, and you're looking out of that window, so desperate to go." She shook her head reproachfully. "But you're not going to get out if you don't prove to the medical nerds that you can."

"I know," Claire murmured.

M stood up and checked her watch. "I'll be in to see you again tomorrow, okay? You _will _stand up. Your arm movements are stronger already. Give it a week and you'll be walking!"

"Thank you." It was a word she had forced herself to repeat, to perfect the hard 'k' sound. She was getting better, but it was not an easy task to relearn everything you had garnered in your head for over eighteen years, especially when one was tired.

Often, when the lights went out and she closed her eyes she would see images flash behind her eyelids, so bright, so vivid, but through the eyes of another. Her mouth, arms, legs, voice and stature were not her own. It frightened her. She tried not to sleep as much anymore. Sometimes, however, it was unavoidable. She felt like she was slowly sinking into warm water, and then woke up with an ice-cold splash in the face. The nurses had believed she was developing insomnia, yet Claire did not believe this to be the case.

"Seventy hours," one nurse had commented when she thought her patient wasn't listening. "Seventy hours, and then she'll start sleeping in the daytime. She'll have no choice."

Seventy hours – that cut down to, what, two days and a bit? Then micro-naps, falling asleep in the middle of the day, like narcoleptics.

That was when she got that oddly comforting feeling again, like being tucked up in a blanket, that sensation of being dipped into warm, clean bathwater. She could have sworn her eyes were closing, but she could still see M there, in the doorway. She was waving goodbye.

M's face snapped into another's, wrong for her height and figure. Male. Light brown hair. He smiled at Claire, though she could tell the smile was false. This was the man she had seen so many times, before she had gone into a coma, been drowned on dry land. He watched her with this wary look in his eye, like she could hurt him if she wanted.

Her own mouth opened and words sung to a mournful tune escaped it, strangely not in her native tongue, rather in a language she had never spoken before.

"_Ki wo tsukete kami sama wa miteru_," she sang softly.

M's face returned, startled, and her pale blue eyes stared at her friend. "Claire? Did you say something?"

"_Kurai yomichi wa te wo tsunaide kudasai_," she continued.

"Claire!" M snapped. "Stop it! That's not funny!"

**XXX**

The Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland bid farewell to his cabinet and led the President of the United States of America into his main office. Regardless of the pleasantries they had exchanged publicly outside number ten Downing Street, the tension in the office itself was paramount. The Prime Minister was oblivious to it, a look of undeniable glee written all over his face. The President was ever so slightly disconcerted by the expression.

He marched into the office and once the door had been shut with a _click_, he stormed over to the Prime Minister, who appeared to be completely at ease with the rather tense situation. This was strange. The President was physically a more formidable man, taller and more thickset, whereas the British politician was simply long and lanky, a weedy-looking gentleman in circular wire spectacles.

"I don't know what you were thinking, sir," the President barked. "To announce on behalf of the United Nations that those with… abnormal abilities would be safe in all of our countries! It is abominable for you to even consider that you could decide something of that nature all on your own! It's ridiculous! You do not speak for the entire force of the United Nations, sir, and you most certainly do not speak for America!"

"Oh, do _shut up_," the Prime Minister intoned.

"I… I _beg _your pardon?" the President gasped.

"How to stop him talking?" he sighed. "Oh, I know! Let's give him a little surprise! Let's tell him the truth, shall we?"

"You are speaking cryptically and if you continue, I shall call in security."

"Don't be silly. The UK was only my first step. Come along now, Mr. President, let's not lie. Great Britain, if you can even call it that, is finished. It's a low rung on a very high-reaching ladder. But you, Mr. President, you…" He smirked darkly, tilting his head to one side with a sickening _crack_. "Yes… you see, the Prime Minister is a particularly weak man, a man prone to offering no resistance when threatened. It was easy to get inside his mind. And he controlled so very little. No one listens to the man. Instead, they turn to one of the greatest political superpowers on Earth… you…"

"W-who _are _you? You're talking like you're not the Prime Minister!" the President choked out.

"Oh, but I _am_, technically speaking," he pressed. "I am the Prime Minister if I am controlling him, inside his head. Would you like to know what he's thinking, Mr. President?"

"What is it?" he mumbled.

"He's thinking… oh, that's right… _run_."

The President, horrified and instinctual, launched himself across the room, only to be chased by the creature that had taken a hold of the Prime Minister's body. He slammed his fists against the door, about to cry out, when he realized that the door was locked. He must have had it ordered when they entered the room itself. A madman was in charge of a country, and oh, God, he was going to die at the lunatic's hands…

"All it takes… is one touch," the Prime Minister grinned, and pressed his hand to the President's neck.

**XXX**

It had been a week since the British Prime Minister had declared peace for all Children on behalf of the one hundred and ninety-three countries belonging to the United Nations. The next day, the American President had told the world that the circumstances were true: children of the storm were welcome to be a part of society should they wish, and would be given equal rights.

"The President too?" Rose mumbled. "I don't trust this. It shouldn't be working out like this. It shouldn't be this easy!"

She and B were the only ones paying the television their full attention. The others were all busying themselves with things that seemed… well, trivial. Elisabeth had agreed, with the permission of the rest of the Zapped (disregarding B and Rose, who thought the decision distasteful) to speak out as their representative and explain what it was that they stood for. B and Rose were not fond of the idea of becoming practically a brand, something to sell out. They only wished to find other children of the storm and save them from persecution.

Wammy's House had become a sanctuary. They did not desire for it to become a false hope, a commercial landmark.

Elisabeth had previously been decked out in businesslike attire, as though she had become a politician. After seeing this, Emilia adamantly protested.

"If you're going to try and represent the Zapped, dress like one of them," she instructed. Thus Elisabeth had changed back into her lightning-bolt suit and put on the pair of shoes she had worn whilst facing Takada in the aquarium those many weeks before.

"Do I look all right?" she asked self-consciously.

"You look the part," L encouraged. "Now, do not say anything that will reflect back on us in a bad way, if you can. From what they have told the world, the government are no longer against us. They should not make things too difficult for you. Just in case they do, good luck."

"Don't trust them," B warned. "I don't."

"The United Nations have declared to the world that they accept us," Elisabeth responded shrewdly. "If they rejected us so vehemently in front of the world, they would be making a massively dangerous mistake."

"I wouldn't put it past them," Rose muttered, remembering the treatment she had received at the hands of their so-called 'friendly' government. Recalling the drowning she had been submitted to, her throat tightened, and the sensation of every bone in her body aching came back to her with the thoughts of being beaten by her guards.

"Where's Ben?" Elisabeth asked.

"Practicing his power in the gym, I think, like he should be," B remarked. "He and Misa have been bouncing experiments off each other. I think that girl will be glad to let off some steam, actually. Has anybody else noticed how she's been even more uptight than anyone else since we got back from hiding, and she still doesn't seem happy, despite believing we're safe now?"

"I think it's boy-related," Matsuda piped up. "Her relationship with Light is more than a bit shaky at the moment because of Emilia."

"That guy is an idiot," Tessa said, entering the room with a cup of strong, bitter coffee in hand. "He needs to stop leading both of them on, or someone's going to get really hurt."

"Tell me about it," Matsuda sighed. "It's most likely going to be me. Whenever I transform, I usually end up hanging around with Misa because she's the one who watches where the hell she's stepping. Nice kid. Considerate."

"Any luck with finding more Children?" Elisabeth asked. "I know B's been on the Internet pretty much all morning searching."

"Not many are admitting where they are, despite being supposedly accepted," he shrugged. "They must be a brighter bunch than we assume. Whatever we tell them, they're still being safety-conscious, and that's a good idea, because regardless of whatever crap the government's feeding us, we still don't know for certain whether we're to be cautious or not."

"There was one…" Elisabeth mumbled, and tapped L on the shoulder. "Oh, of course! How could I have forgotten? Do you remember, before the aquarium, we went to see that blonde girl Claire in hospital? She'd tried to commit suicide, but it turned out Takada had attacked her. She was the one in a coma."

"I can't imagine she is feeling sprightly and ready to take on any government, even if she did wake up since we saw her," L sighed. "Knowing the chances of her consciousness reoccurring, she is most likely dead by now. I hate to be the one to say it, but it is true. She is probably dead."

"Look, I know that you and I have both got a lot on our plate today, what with the press conference and the research and the searching going on, but could you do me a favor?" she begged.

"What is it?"

"Well, if you could just contact the hospital, and see if you're able to visit Claire again, let me know how she's doing. I hate to think that we haven't even checked."

"She was a pizza delivery girl, wasn't she?"

"She led us to Takada, remember?" She checked the clock by the television and rolled her eyes. "Seriously, L, I don't care how you do it or when you do it, but can you just make sure that you find out for me _at some point_? Thank you. look, I've got to go now, L, or I'm going to be late and that will make a bad impression, and I'll see you later… okay?"

"Okay."

As she left, B glanced back at L.

"I _still _don't trust that government," he said.

* * *

><p><em>So... who's figured out what's going on? I bet everyone's going to get it right away now - or at least, it should be a bit easier.<em>

_Please review to let me know what you think!_

_C._


	4. Ornithophobia

Elisabeth had been sitting in on the meeting between the representative of the Zapped, the British Prime Minister, the President of the United States. Truth be told, it felt more than a little strange sitting across from two of the most powerful men on the planet wearing her Zapped uniform. Despite the total bizarreness of the entire situation, neither cast her an odd glance.

They spent approximately a quarter of an hour appearing to be good friends outside ten Downing Street (where Elisabeth demonstrated her power by switching a light outside off and on again), and then entered the building for their talks, to be held in a specialist conference room at front of the offices. None of the public or press would be able to see into the meetings, or even be capable of distinguishing who was present should another person join them later.

The Prime Minister had ever so politely pulled a chair out for her at the conference table before proceeding to take his own seat opposite her, yet next to the President, whose stare was so unblinking it made her shiver. If the two politicians had planned to try and intimidate her, so far it was definitely working. There was an underlying, unspoken tension between the meeting's participants throughout.

"I agree with your point, Mr. President, but I don't think that integrating those with powers into a school with ordinary kids is the best way to do things," she explained. "Bullying would be rife, ostracizing, isolation, even perhaps neglect or negligence from teachers themselves."

"What do you propose, Volta?"

"My suggestion? Build schools that those with powers can attend, taught by teachers who know how sensitive the circumstances are. Bring in scientists – psychologists, neurologists, geneticists… anybody who could offer some light. I've done research on our powers so far, how they possibly work, but I can't keep that up without some additional help. I'm sure our powers have limits, but we haven't found them yet."

"Excellent, Volta," the Prime Minister exulted. "Well done."

"Encourage people to integrate with children of the storm outside of school and work," Elisabeth continued. "The public need to be capable of viewing that the Children all are human still, and require social lives as much as any of the ordinary beings. They're the same as they were before, just with an added ability that they must learn to control. The moment somebody gets out of hand, there will be an incident like that at the aquarium in Winchester, where one person wants control of the world because they have a power and it all goes haywire."

"Well, we certainly wish to avoid that," the President smiled.

"Yes, I imagine you do," Elisabeth murmured, "so would you please stop looking at the clock above my head like you're bored to be here?"

"I merely like being aware of what the time is, Volta," he responded too warmly.

"So what time is it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What time is it?" she asked again.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you said, Mr. President, that you like knowing what time it is, and therefore knowing the time must be more important than what I have to say. Since what I have to say is pretty important, something must be happening very soon. So… what time is it?" she asked coldly.

His face darkened, knowing that she was suspicious and then he sighed, planting his palms on the desk in front of him as he rose from his seat. He clicked his neck to one side. A crack resounded in the room. He checked the watch on his left wrist.

"Twenty-seven past two, Volta. It's twenty-seven minutes past two in the afternoon," he sighed.

"Why is that time so important?" she demanded.

He grinned fiendishly. "I know it's bad. Any minute now, at half past two, the entire building on this site will go up in flames, caused by a circuit malfunction. And guess whose power involves electricity, as you so kindly demonstrated for us outside?"

"You can't be serious!" she gasped. "You're going to blow up one of your own buildings and blame it on me? That won't stick, anyway! You'll still be alive – people will suspect something! I mean, I knew the government were a bit twisted, but you'd really destroy a landmark for this?"

"Not just a landmark, Volta." The Prime Minister finally spoke up. His voice was shaky, his eyes wide. "I have seen the light, like the President here. He showed me the way out of these dark times, and it is to sacrifice our own beings."

"You're… you're going to kill yourselves?" she choked out disbelievingly.

"And you're going down with them," the President smirked. "You're going to burn, and if you survive, people _will _blame you. Not just Britain, but America as well."

"You said I'm going down with 'them'," Elisabeth realized. She stared at the President of the United States as she stood up and backed away, towards the door. "Like you're not really in there."

"She's smart," the President laughed. "Oh, and all this time, I thought I'd been trapping dipshits."

"Who are you?" she growled. "What do you want from me?"

"Not much," he teased. "Should be easy for you. You see, from what you've said, Takada wanted supremacy, a world of Children. She wished for life to only be the powerful. Her idea was to kill the ordinary humans that couldn't fight back. She sounds like the type who wouldn't pick on her own size." He chuckled. "My own scope is much, much smaller."

"Who are you picking on?" she mumbled.

He checked his watch again and grinned further. "You."

Immediately, she shoved down on the door handle, realizing he'd locked it – but it was electronic… she could get out, even if the two suicidal politicians couldn't. She leapt out through the opening door and yelled for people to evacuate. She shouted as loudly as she could, running toward the front door. They were at the front of the building. There was a very good chance she would survive.

Several others followed her out of number ten Downing Street, realizing that they really did have good reason to panic, and they burst out through the front door before she did. The road vibrated deep with a bass sound that trembled, and the glass in the windows of the building split apart, blowing outwards with incalculable force.

She tried to maintain calm breathing once more, having grazed her hands outside on the ground and scratched her arms and elbows on tiny fragments of broken glass.

B and Rose had been right: she had made a mistake in trusting the government.

But who _the hell _had that been inside the President, if not him?

**XXX**

Harold McElroy, as nice a man as he was, had tried desperately to be understanding about the whole 'sleeping-with-a-client-and-getting-suspended' situation that involved his oldest son. He had known what the young man was going to say before it was even said, and had scolded him lightly, using only the 'I thought you knew better' phrase that he had heard so many times before in his youth. After that, the eldest McElroy had taken it upon himself to lecture his son on controlling sexual urges whilst he made both of his boys a hot chocolate.

Jean McElroy had not been so placated by the actually rather meager punishment that the judge had inflicted on her son. She was furious by the slightest black mark on Tom's record, and had used every single classic parental admonishment she could conjure up in ten minutes. Drew was almost cowering behind his father, whereas Tom took each cutting insult with a stern expression that actually meant he was having a secret giggle at her internally. He was practically counting off Jean McElroy's familiar phrases one by one on a tally.

"A two-week suspension!" she snapped. "I can't believe it! The embarrassment! Can you not keep it in your pants, boy?"

Tom was about to say 'nope' when he caught sight of his younger brother shaking his head in warning. Instead, he tried to hide his amused smile by bowing his head. His mother glanced at the clock in the kitchen and stormed out, declaring that she had some kind of meeting with a client charged with fraud and forgery. Tom exhaled in relief and gulped down his practically scalding hot chocolate.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," Harold mumbled, turning to clean up any tea-stains left on the counter by the teapot. "That was not the worst rollicking she could have given you, my son. Be careful, be careful! That hot chocolate is boiling! Put it down, that's it – no, no, put it on a coaster. There's a good lad."

"Hey, Dad," Drew said, "you bird-watch from time to time, don't you?"

"When I get a chance," he admitted. "Greg, Ken, Lucille and Millie all like heading up to the woods, so when I get an opportunity…"

"What can you tell me about flight?" he asked.

"Flight?" he stammered. "Oh, flight of birds, yes… um… well, the bones in the wings of most birds are hollow so that their bone density doesn't weigh them down when they fly." He paused, and Drew said nothing, evidently prompting him to continue. "There are, I believe, four different types of wing category. Pheasants and partridges have elliptical wings, suitable for maneuvering tight spaces. Ducks have short, pointed wings called high speed wings. Seabirds and kestrels possess the high aspect ratio wings, low and good for hovering. Eagles have large wings, good for takeoff, like vultures. They are quick and glide well."

"And… wingspan?"

"Depends on the size of the bird, Drew," Harold said knowledgeably. "Height should be at a ratio with wingspan of about one-ten, but there's no specific ratio to go with it. An albatross is at one-ten. I don't know for certain…"

"Oh," Drew muttered.

Well, that dashed his theory, then. He had had little doubt before that Tom would be capable of flying. However, hearing his father's data about wingspan, he now had serious reservations. If a height-wing ratio was at one-ten, and Tom was six feet tall, his wings would have to be sixty feet wide in order for him to achieve flight like an albatross, and as Drew had witnessed, they did not stretch sixty feet. In addition, humans weren't built for flight. Unlike a bird, their skeleton was not hollow, so to fly would take wings of enormous strength, and to maintain flight would be exhausting.

"Mind you, the Golden Ratio mentions 'wingspan'," Harold murmured to himself. "From the tip of one hand to the other with outstretched arms. The idea is your wingspan is the same, or roughly the same, as your height."

Drew and Tom looked up at the same time and exchanged a quick glance.

"Why did you want to know, Drew?" Harold asked.

"Just curious," Drew lied. "I saw a book recently at the…" He suddenly realized. He had great access to a number of sources of various information every single day. It was his _job_.

"The library," Tom finished for him. "Drew's been browsing through the library."

"Thanks for the drink and cookies, Dad," Drew said hurriedly. "I've just remembered I've got loads of work to do cataloguing new DVDs that came in yesterday." He put the mug down on the side, patted his father's shoulder and left in a rush.

When he got home, the first thing he did was to fire up his computer.

**XXX**

Dr. Johann entered Claire Riddle's hospital room that evening, as the lights were going out, and saw that although she must be very tired, she sat up in bed, staring at the wall in front of her. She did not react when he came in, instead remaining focused on the wall.

"Claire?" Johann said tentatively.

Her eyes snapped to his figure in the doorway, silhouetted. She looked exactly like a stereotypical nutcase.

"Hello, Claire," Johann pressed. "My name is Dr. Frederick Johann. I'm a psychiatrist."

"I know." The words sounded forced, hushed. "What do you want with me?"

"I wanted to have a word with you about what happened yesterday," he said in a voice so sickly sweet her brow furrowed in suspicion. "I heard you were talking."

"I was," she confirmed dryly.

"That is not what is strange, though it is impressive, considering the state you should be in," he murmured. "No, no, what is strange is you were talking in a language you do not know."

"That is not certain," she mumbled.

"Nowhere in any of your records does it say you speak, or have ever spoken, the slightest bit of Japanese," Johann continued. "And this hallucination you had… it doesn't put you in a very good position, does it?"

"Go away."

"I could make life so difficult for you, Claire." He sat opposite her, much too close, and leant in. "So how's about you make life easy for me?"

She glowered, disgusted. After a moment of consideration, she swallowed and leant forward a little. His grin made her feel sick. She slammed her forehead against his with as much power as she could muster. He fell backwards off the bed and cried out in pain. When he stood up, the corners of her mouth turned upwards slightly. His nose was bleeding.

"You… you _head-butted _me!" he gasped. "Bitch! You're going to regret that!"

She watched him as he stormed out, her expression unchanging.

* * *

><p><em>Hey, how's it going? Suddenly realized I never published the final results of 'who's your favourite "Zapped" OC?' poll, so am doing so now. <em>

_With 50%, it's Elisabeth Reid._

_With 25%, it's Rose Beaumont._

_With 12%, it's Tessa P., and with 12% again, it's Emlia Deaver._

_Funnily enough, Ben Reid, Lara Compton and Clarissa Deaver received no votes!_

_Thanks for reading the chapter. Please do leave a review - look at that cute little button. Can you deny it?_

_C._


	5. Bibliophobia

Drew ran his fingers over the spines of the books in the animal non-fiction section of the library, searching for the different types of wing that his father had mentioned, the ones that may determine precisely how his older brother could fly. He picked up four books, one the same size as an Oxford dictionary he had at home, and dumped them all on a desk where he could sit down and read them. It looked like he would be spending a lot of time at work.

His eyes flickered to the shelves again, making sure no one looked too suspicious and was curious about him picking so many books. There was nobody that caught his eye. He was flicking through the first one hundred pages of a book specifying the skeletal structure of different types of birds when something made him stop and glance at his surroundings again.

Tom had opted not to visit the library with him. He was extremely popular with the middle-aged to senior women who helped Drew run the place and it made him feel shifty. He always commented that when they stared at him, he could feel their dentures nibbling on the back of his neck already and he was determined to get away as soon as possible. This was understandable. All of these women were most likely married… and used to getting their way.

It was a flash of red that made him look in the direction of the shelves. He got cautiously to his feet and put the books to one side of the desk he was working at, deciding to go back to them later, when he felt more secure. He could navigate his way around a library far, far more efficiently than most, having spent plenty of time in and around them when he was a little boy. He followed the red to where it was going and then got a glimpse of the suspect.

Red hair, pale face, a few freckles. Wearing black. Not to be messed with, but clearly not a government operative, not when she was looking through the law section of books. Drew knew this not only because he'd mastered the Dewey decimal system in a day and a half, but because he'd spent hours rearranging those books after law students from the local college had been in studying for their exams.

The redheaded woman looked up from her law book and stared at him. She was younger than on first inspection, about eighteen or nineteen years old. She pursed her lips, and for a moment, Drew could have sworn that she was holding back the world's most excited squeal.

"Can I help you?" Drew asked.

"I'm Melody," she told him brightly. "I'm looking for a law book because… well…" Her expression instantly darkened. "Well, there's someone I need to read one for. I need to know about civil rights and legal incompetence and stuff. And harassment. And… is there anything on dreams?"

"That's quite a broad range of topics you're after," he pointed out. "But I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," she replied happily. "Let's get started, then."

The two of them rifled through some of the reading material that mentioned harassment claims, but none of it turned up trumps. Their escapade to find civil rights policies was considerably more successful, and she left the library an hour or so later with two books on civil rights and legal incompetency, in addition to one book on the interpretation of dreams (not to be confused with the Freudian thesis).

Drew checked out the books he had taken from the shelves on birds and left the library shortly after Melody. He was driving on his way home when he decided he wanted to stop at the café not far from the library and grab a coffee. As soon as he arrived, he recognized the familiar ginger girl from earlier and went to join her, much to her contentment.

"You talked about a friend back there," he remembered. "Why would your friend need so much reading material?"

"Well, firstly she can't get to books herself."

"She's disabled?"

"Institutionalized," Melody corrected him, her tone bitter, "though what she did wrong still doesn't make any sense to me."

"Ah," Drew realized, "so that's why you wanted something on legal incompetency."

"That's right. She had an accident and after she came out of her coma, things got out of hand. Nurses and doctors told me she was having delusions, but I don't believe it." She shook her head. "She's always been so clear about everything, so rational, then she just… I don't know. It's like she's focusing on something that's out there, and she's just not quite got it yet."

"How can she know it's out there and not get it?"

"It's out of her reach. Shit, I don't know really how her mind works, I'm just guessing. But what she does, what she has, it's not sick. It's weird, because it's her, yet it's not totally negative." She laughed. "I must seem like a total freak."

"No, not at all." He nudged her. "I think it's a very loyal thing you're doing, reading up on all of this stuff to get her out."

"Yeah, it was all this psychiatrist Dr. Johann's fault. I don't know why, but he said she was hallucinating, out of the blue, just suddenly he decides that's she's not the Claire I know anymore," she said. "Wow, you're a good listener."

"Years of experience," he responded. "My older brother's a lawyer and a bigmouth."

"I bet he's not a patch on you."

"Thank you. Now how's about I let you alone and you finish your book? If you need anything, just go on back to the library at some point. I'll probably be there. I work there."

"Oh my God," she squealed. "You're a _librarian_?"

"If that wasn't obvious enough," he shrugged. "See you around, Melody. Oh, and I'm sure your friend's right. Claire, wasn't it? What she's looking for… it's definitely out there somewhere."

**XXX**

"Dead?" B repeated. "They're both dead?"

Elisabeth had finished explaining the events within the ten Downing Street that had led to her returning to Winchester with two of the world's most powerful leaders' lives having just gone kaput. Secretly, he was a little pleased at having been proven right, and it was only later that evening that he would confide smugly in Rose just how good it felt proving the know-it-all Elisabeth Reid wrong for once. He did feel the tiniest bit of pity for L, who would have to endure his girlfriend's moaning about the outrage of being tricked, like that had never happened to anyone before.

According to Elisabeth, there had been somebody controlling the two politicians, though it seemed to her as if the President was the one being directly manipulated, whilst the Prime Minister was no longer under strong mental influence. A rogue Child, perhaps, was the culprit, but this could not be confirmed with the little information the Zapped possessed.

They needed information badly in order to put this bubble of storm supremacy to an end. They had offensive fighters, incredibly strong ones, that were a great asset in a physical confrontation. However, in terms of a battle of wits far away from their opponent, their powers did them little good. In their group they had Near, who could predict events, but was incapable of putting them into a certain context where everything about an enemy could be known.

They had L, who could read minds as far as a quarter of a mile away when he concentrated (this had been determined by an exhaustive task with an airport runway). Still, his mental capabilities were no use as far as strength and stamina were concerned. He had been nudged by the others to exercise more often, and it was usually B who would sit nearby and make sure he did it.

It was strange, but Misa had become one of their most treasured fighters. Recently, her aggression and frustration at matters within her life that she could not control had become channeled into combat, and she was scarily good at it. Having watched her train and seen the damage she could do, B was almost sympathetic for anybody she went up against in a fight. Most of the time her rage was kind of funny.

Finally, Elisabeth was ushered out of the office so he had time to think. L was telling her she should go shower, relax, take a load off. B spun around in his swivel-chair and rolled his eyes wearily.

"Jesus, I thought she was never going to leave," he muttered. "A guy in front of her who's not really the guy he's supposed to be but looks and sounds like the guy he's supposed to be? Ugh… it's too late in the evening for this crap."

"Tell me about it," L sighed, sinking into a chair and pulling his knees up. "I think I need a bowl of plain sugar to clear my head of that."

"There's a big bag left over there from using it for tea and coffee," B told him. "Help yourself. And while you're there, could you chuck a guy a pot of jam?" He caught the jam one-handedly. "Thanks a bunch."

"Have you noticed that lately Elisabeth has been acting a little…?"

"Hormonal?" B suggested. "Yeah, she's that type."

"That _type_?"

"You walked right into it, mate," B shrugged. "Never heard of a tsundere? She's almost a classic tsundere, except she's a pain in the ass when you're dating her too. You know, I'd get out of it while you're in the early stages."

"But I really do like her-"

"Then stop fucking complaining," B advised sharply. He turned back to the desk he was sitting at with a smirk and yawned. Suddenly, he noticed something on the corner of the desk, right at the back by the wall. He picked up the file and opened it, curious. He frowned and turned back to L, opening the file to the first page. "L?"

"Yes?"

"Who's this?" he asked, showing his near-twin the laminated photo of a dark blonde girl with blue-green eyes. "What is this doing here?"

"Oh," L said. "I think she's a child of the storm. Elisabeth asked me to research her, find out how she is doing, because she couldn't be bothered. She was attacked by Takada before she found us and she was comatose for a while. I called the hospital, and last time I checked, she was awake."

"Dude, this isn't a couple of pages on her condition," B pointed out shrewdly. He thumbed through the folder. "This is a whole _file _on her." He looked at L again. "What's her name?"

"Claire Riddle."

B snorted derisively, murmuring in an undertone, "Sounds fake."

"That was what I thought at first, but I ran it through the computers and the government census. All of her computerized documents match the name and history. That's definitely her real name," he said.

"Bit obsessive, don't you think?" B remarked.

"Not at all."

"Bullshit, man. No one checks on a girl's history, medical records, birth certificate, school record and curriculum vitae just because his girlfriend's told him to check up on if she's in a coma or not," B sneered. "Tell me, 'cause I'm struggling a bit, why you're researching this Riddle kid so thoroughly when you've already got a girlfriend – who may be currently menstruating, but is your girlfriend nonetheless – and you've got _way _bigger problems."

"I…" He trailed off, then swallowed and started again. "Honestly, I don't really understand. All I remember to begin with is that I had to call the hospital because Elisabeth told me to, and then… well, I became interested. So I studied her past a little further. And then a little further."

"And then further," B finished for him. "That's really creepy. And trust me, I _know _creepy."

"I told you, I do not fully comprehend it myself," L insisted. "It is like some external force keeps reminding me that I need to keep myself updated. I will just tell Elisabeth and the others that I required as much data as possible to determine whether she possesses a power or not. It is not as if any of you can read _my _mind."

"To be honest, L," B mumbled, "right now I'm kind of glad I can't."

* * *

><p><em>The plot is thickening, and the plot bunnies are running rampant, with inspiration atoms flying about my bedroom at the present moment in time.<em>

_My apologies for having not updated sooner, but I have been extraordinarily busy and felt I needed a little time to collect my thoughts. I am hoping, as always, that you enjoyed the chapter._

_I am currently failing with ideas for chapter names (consistent, original ones that work like the last "Zapped"'s onomatopoeia) so if you have any ideas, please message me or suggest them in a review._

_C._


	6. Acrophobia

Light was struggling. Before any of the crazy had happened, he had always considered himself apt to deal with any kind of situation. It was very rare that he was flustered, especially not when it came to interacting with the opposite sex. It was hardly a difficult thing to do, to reach his objectives. He supposed that this was partially what had prompted his power to become what it was.

In a way, he knew he should feel guilty. All of this time, he had stuck by Misa, feeding her obsession for him whilst he dismissed her, kept her to one side. He had to confess he did not share a mutual love for her – not even close. She had insisted on remaining foolish for him, despite the fact he preferred the more intelligent, more determined side of her. He and she were the popular, expected couple. It had been peer pressure that kept them from falling apart messily.

Then Emilia just had to turn up and complicate things further. She was definitely not a bad choice for a prospective partner: pretty, athletic, reasonably clever… but she was untrusting, went back on promises and behaved in a calculative manner. Regardless of this, he did still like her. A lot. It was the price to pay, since nobody was perfect.

Matsuda had been giving him weird looks for a while, actually, and it was only recently he'd begun to notice it, but yes… there one was. A glance with a strange combination of emotions mixed in, like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to punch Light, thought he was amazing or was disappointed in him. Light had never seen his police officer friend behave like this. He was just happy-go-lucky Matsuda, clumsy Matsuda, guinea-pig Matsuda…

Tessa looked at both young men and arched an eyebrow, before rising from her seat and clearing her throat. "Well," she mumbled, "I'm… I'm going to leave you two alone for a bit while I go look for Matt."

"Practicing with Ben and Mello, I think," Light told her.

"Thanks," she muttered. She looked back once over her shoulder before she left the room. "You two boys behave now."

She rolled her eyes. Whatever happened between the pair now would be of their own making. She'd warned them, and if it just so happened that they weren't listening to her, then on their own heads be it. She had sensed the tense atmosphere building, not only with Elisabeth and L, but with Light and Emilia too. She wasn't stupid. If only people could just have simple relationships, maneuvering her way through the awkward consequences that followed without committing a fatal faux pas would be much easier.

There was silence for a moment, and then Light was the first to broach the tension.

"Is everything all right, Matsuda?" he asked.

"You know, I never realized," Matsuda mumbled, "why they call you the Conman. But it makes sense now. 'Cause I've seen you and the others for months now, and seen how you work them like puppets on strings, make them think that they're winning, when it's your party all along."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," he said. "And I think it's time for you to man up and choose who you want. There's a dead simple route out of the issue, if only you would think of it, instead of making the rest of us watch those two poor girls agonize over you. That's just selfish."

"You're annoyed about _Misa _and _Emilia_?" Light choked out. "You don't even know them that well!"

"That's where you're wrong, Light," Matsuda replied, "because whenever Misa had troubles with you, she would turn to the closest person who would listen, and that person was always me. She's a good person, and her heart's in the right place. _You're _the one whodoesn't know her."

"What's your point?"

"Make your choice, Light. Stop hurting them both. Use your persuasion for good this time, and convince the one you don't want to be with that they don't like you anymore. Save them both some heartache. Let the other carry on with their life." He breathed in and fixed Light with a serious stare. "This is the first time I've ever felt truly angry with you, Light. Don't make it last."

**XXX**

Tom clambered up onto the tree branch shakily, stretching his wings out. He had agreed to come out to the nearest forest because few people traveled out this far if they wanted a walk. Hikers traveled closer to the bird reservation, where wildlife was frantic and there were plenty of photograph opportunities. To be fair, Drew hadn't specified that he should climb one of the tallest trees to see if he could fly down. That was his idea.

Tom saw his younger brother running across the clear, empty green towards the tree he had climbed. He looked horrified.

"Tom, what do you think you're _doing_?" he yelled. "It's dangerous up there!"

"Enjoying the view, what does it look like I'm doing?" he snapped sarcastically. "I'm just practicing."

"I agree with you practicing, but Jesus Christ, Tom, not from that height," Drew shouted. "I don't care how invincible you think you are now. Get down from that bloody tree."

Tom yawned. "I'm thinking of getting into contact with that Zapped lot," he told his brother nonchalantly. "I want to meet them, get involved. I reckon it'd help to be a part of their posse."

"You can't act so recklessly, without thinking it through!" Drew chastised him. "Consider how that would look, just as the Zapped and the rest of the children of the storm are beginning to get a foothold in civil rights…"

"Oh, don't go getting so fucking political with me, Drew," Tom groaned. "It just hurts my brain."

"Well, stop acting like a dick, then!" the younger man barked. "Get down here _now_!"

Tom grinned. "I always was the more fun one," he shrugged, balancing carefully on the thick branch holding his weight. "You told me to get down. This is the quickest route, right?"

With that, he launched himself off the branch, throwing himself into the air. Drew tried to shout a warning of 'no', but it was much too late. Tom's wings already were beginning to beat the air, propelling him forward… but not upwards. He swerved and stuttered like a breaking plane. It took a moment before he crashed through into the trees on the far side of the clearing. However, the crash was not as loud as expected.

Drew pelted his way across the field until he got to the trees on the other side of the clearing. He was pretty out of breath by the time he got there – it was a big field, after all. When he reached his brother, he could only really stare. In the woods, Tom was still hovering, but not under his own steam. He was being held in the air by strange, shiny black… well, tentacles. To be fair, Tom looked kind of awkward with the circumstances anyway.

"M-Melody?" Drew spluttered. "You… what are you doing here?"

Melody smiled slightly. "I wanted to give you those books back, so I followed you. And… well, he came towards me really fast."

"Oh my God," Tom cracked up laughing. "Just like you to reel in one with tentacles, mate…"

Drew swallowed. "I think… I think we'd better find the Zapped."

"Not without getting Claire out of that institution first," Melody said defiantly. "It's not right that she's in there, and I don't know about you, but I want to get to the bottom of what's going on here."

"Sorry, who's Claire?" Tom asked, still hanging by Melody's tentacles.

"I'll update you later," Drew muttered. "Mel, you said that Claire was put into a hospital or a centre after she spoke to this Johann guy. You do realize that in order to get her out, we would need a written, signed pass from her doctor or psychiatrist saying she wasn't a danger to society and was allowed to leave the place?"

"You see," Melody mumbled, "that's part of the reason that I wanted to talk to you. I went to the hospital to get her out, and they know my face."

Drew and Tom gaped at her.

"You want _me _to impersonate her psychiatrist?" Drew suggested disbelievingly. "Why?"

"Because I think I love you, Drew," she admitted casually.

"D'aw, cute," Tom cooed teasingly.

"Shut up, Tom." Drew pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes behind his Ray-Bans. "You want me to impersonate Claire's psychiatrist… so how are we going to do it?"

**XXX**

B and L were sitting in the car and had been for a little while, approximately ten minutes. Rose was with them, sitting in the back reading a book called _The Secrets of Marine Life_. None of them were sure whether they would have to chicken out and go back to Wammy's House, or whether L would pluck up the courage to enter the establishment they were currently parked outside.

Eventually, B had not been able to take L's interest with Claire Riddle sitting down. He had given his former mentor the ultimate shove and had offered to drive him to the hospital where she was now, they had discovered, being kept. It had turned out that she had been declared legally incompetent and psychologically dangerous when they checked her latest medical record, and was being held under strict lock and key at the St. Augustine Centre for the Psychologically Unstable.

If it was true that Claire Riddle was a real child of the storm, it was possible she was being entirely misunderstood. Had Near been put in her position, he most likely would have been accused of having hallucinations and delusions as he predicted the future, and people were scared of what they did not comprehend, psychic abilities being something they did have a hope of understanding.

B handed L the file concerning Claire Riddle and fixed him with a wary look. It was a question, one last chance to decide to turn back and give up on this insane venture, potentially angering his suddenly hormonal and irritable girlfriend, the same girlfriend who could fry him like he was in an electric chair.

"Are you going yet?" Rose threw over her shoulder. "I feel weird sitting outside an asylum."

"Give him a moment, Rose," B said. "Are you sure you don't want to just go?"

"No," L said firmly. "I need to be here. Elisabeth told me to check up on this girl, and check up I will do. I'm not doing anything wrong by being here."

"Except pretending to be her new psychiatrist, which you're _not_," Rose deadpanned. "Ha. That's funny…"

"Nothing about this situation is at all funny," L responded dryly.

"Nah, not that." She held up her book in show. "Did you know walruses have the second biggest set of junk of any mammal in the world? That's some crazy shit…"

"You can turn back, L," B told him. "In fact, there's part of me that really wants you to. I don't have beef about lying to your girlfriend, but I don't want any role in it when she eventually goes to castrate you for not telling her the truth."

"I'm not lying to her," L insisted, "just not telling her the entire truth. Besides, she does not control what I do."

"Really?" Rose muttered. "She was wearing a necklace the other day and I wondered briefly if it held your nut-sack."

"Thank you for your faith, Rose," L grumbled.

"It was a _very _brief thought, L, I had more important things to do. Tessa's been popping in and out of existence again. She said she was seeing if she could visit her own birth." She rubbed her eyes. "Fucked if I believe that."

"I'm going," L announced, tucking the file under one arm and opening the door. He glanced back once at B. "Thank you, B. If Elisabeth asks, you had nothing to do with it."

"Much appreciated," B replied. "Now go on in there and do that freaky stalker shit you want to do so badly – oh, okay, okay, that _Elisabeth _wants you to do so badly."

"I'll find my way back to Wammy's later," L said.

"Mm," B grinned, "maybe _I'll _have _you _singing 'Kung Fu Fighting' to open the gates this time."

L rolled his eyes, shut the door and made his way towards the entrance of the St. Augustine Centre. He had no idea what was going to happen, but proceeded regardless.

* * *

><p><em>Things are beginning to puzzle up and get more complicated. Things will probably end up being more complicated, and I guarantee you that soon there will be a test of your deduction skills. How well do you know this series? Are you paying attention to detail?<em>

_Just a heads up. Hoping everyone's all right, and also hoping that you are liking the new instalment. I know sequels can often be extremely crap compared to the original. I always think that my sequels get better later in the series, whereas the first isn't as strong._

_Please let me know what you think. Thanks!_

_C._


	7. Gynophobia

Tessa and Matt were chilling in one of the leisure rooms attacking his Playstation game of Red Faction (old, but a classic) like it was personally offending them. Matt found a bazooka lying around the tundra setting, much to Tessa's frustration. He was blowing holes in one of the shelter's thick walls so he could hide in there and just shoot out at bots _and_Tessa's character, who may happen to walk by at any moment, oblivious to his location.

"No!" Tessa yelled. "You cannot do that! That's not fair!"

"Life's not fair," Matt grinned. "And you just reset life right in front of me – way! Bang! You've gone _down_! And… time up! Guess who won, Tessa? Guess!"

"You son of a bitch!" Tessa snapped. "You cheated! You broke the rules!"

"There are no rules in an 'all-kill' game!" Matt protested.

"Hey, guys," Elisabeth called over their exchange. "Have either of you seen L? He's not been around all afternoon."

Tessa's eyes widened slightly, out of Elisabeth's sight, before she turned around to face her former babysitter. "Uh… no. No, I haven't seen him. He's obviously playing the Extraordinary League of Gentlemen as the Invisible Man right now."

"Oh," the dark-haired woman mumbled. "Well… well, let me know if you see him. I haven't seen much of him recently, and I need to talk to him about this whole debacle with the President and Prime Minister. I mean, it's not like the disaster was intentional, and we need to figure out who this new Child is, before they start causing even more problems."

"Check China," Matt threw over his shoulder.

"Pardon?"

"USA and the UK are out of the running for big governments. Next up check on China for any strange behavior, or on Russia," he explained simply, as if it was obvious to even the most ridiculous of idiots. "Then Chile."

"What?" Tessa asked. "Why the hell would she check on Chile?"

"I don't trust the place," Matt admitted darkly. "Somewhere describing itself as something hot and cold all at once? That's just not fly with me somewhere in my complicated innermost system."

Tessa laughed in disbelief. "That's just… incredible."

"I know, baby, you love it," he winked.

"No, I mean, what the fuck?" she sniggered. "That's ludicrous. Hot and cold all at once… oh, Christ…"

"I'll let you two be," Elisabeth sighed. "If you see L, will you tell him that I've been looking for him for the past twenty minutes? Ugh…"

The pair waited until Elisabeth had gone before they shared a knowing glance.

"He's not going to be here, is he?" Matt said.

"Nope," Tessa answered wryly. She held up another controller in question. "One more round, bot-free?"

**XXX**

L was inside the St. Augustine Centre, and he had to admit, it made him feel ill at ease. The territory unfamiliar, the protocols foreign, he was practically bluffing his way through each possible obstacle. His credentials as a psychiatrist had been expertly forged – though they were not vital in helping him pass – and one of the new psychologists, a black woman called Dr. Mason, was leading him through the catacomb-like corridors of the hospital.

He noticed that the walls of each place they entered had been painted a pale, relaxed yellow: gender-neutral, Mason told him, though he could not help but wonder at this. He knew no male whose color preference strayed anywhere close to yellow. Evidence had yet to be founded on yellow being considered a gender-neutral color.

"All of your new patients are the ones that Dr. Johann was looking after," Mason explained. She laughed. "Good God, I don't envy your workload. No, most of his patients were the more severe cases, the more dangerous ones. That shouldn't be a problem, I imagine, seeing as I checked your CV and it says you've had plentiful experience with difficult patients."

"I'm a little vague on the details of Dr. Johann's leave," L replied, thumb at his lips.

Mason bit her lip. "One of the patients, the one you wanted to meet first… caused him some physical injury. To his face."

"Is he recovering?"

"Not as fast as we'd like," Mason sighed. "But what can you expect from a broken nose, four broken teeth and some potentially permanent eye damage?" She turned, leading them down another corridor toward a sterile silver elevator. "Come on in."

"Thank you," L muttered.

"It's funny, actually, because this Claire Riddle is really physically weak. Her muscles deteriorated severely when she came out of that coma I was telling you about. She can just about walk, run, jump and dole out a couple of injuries, but I'm telling you… Jesus, when she gets feisty, she sure does get feisty." She rolled her brown eyes wearily. "Enough to break someone's face, anyway."

The elevator doors made a sound resembling a high-pitched _ping_, inviting the two occupants to step out into a quieter, dimmer corridor where the walls were painted white instead of yellow – indicating that the patients in these rooms were unlikely to ever leave their space between four walls.

Mason gestured easily down the hall. "Room one-seven-three." She hesitated. "Do you want me to go with you, or d'you reckon you can handle her okay?"

"I believe I shall sufficiently handle the situation."

"All right, then. See you downstairs, Dr. Ryuzaki."

She disappeared back into the elevator, leaving L to approach the heavy metal door with an embossed one-seven-three on its front. Swallowing his qualms, he turned the key he had been given by Mason in the lock, hearing a quiet song on the other side of the door. As he shouldered the door open, he could hear coherent words, though not in English.

It was something roughly translated to, "Be careful what you do, because God is watching your every move…" It was a catchy tune that she must have picked up off a radio or the Internet. There was no possibility of her having just made it up with neat Japanese grammar, when there was no display of her learning Japanese in amongst her records.

"_Ki __wo __tsukete __kami __sama __wa __miteru_," she sang, "_Kurai __yomichi __wa __te __wo __tsunaide __kudasai_…"

The young woman sitting in the blank white room had a blank expression, dark gold hair in a state of disarray, blue-green eyes flickering up to him. Suddenly, her face mimicked some type of life, curious and fascinated, and scarily knowing. L closed the door behind him, placing the small key in his jeans pocket and sitting down opposite Claire on the bed.

"Hello, Claire. I'm your new doctor," he introduced himself politely.

Her voice was bleak and gravelly, as if she hadn't had much to drink. There was water on her bedside table in a plastic cup. "I know who you are."

"How are you?" he tried.

"Fine."

"I'm afraid everything is a little uncertain. What happened to your last doctor?" he asked her, trying to coax something other than indifference from her.

It worked. Claire's expression became one of distaste, as if the thought of her previous psychiatrist was enough to make her sick. "He tried to do something I didn't like. That blood on the wall is his." She flicked her hand casually in the direction of a dark red smear on the otherwise clean wall.

"Would you say you're a violent person?"

She chuckled once derisively, in contempt of the question. "What do you think?"

"But you're not attacking me now," he noted. With this revelation came a much more comforting feeling, washing over him in something like reassurance.

"You haven't done anything yet," she pointed out with a smirk.

"That's an interesting philosophy."

"An eye for an eye," she murmured. L paused, his mouth opening to release words and finding that nothing came out. Claire's smile was deliberately controlled, careful. "Something interesting about that… Doctor?"

He cleared his throat. "Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?"

"You're the psychiatrist," she said. "You figure it out."

"I know you were in a coma not long ago," he responded. "After you woke up, people said you were having delusions. Hallucinations."

"Just because others cannot see them does not mean they're imaginary." She sounded awfully defensive. "You can't see gravity, can you?"

"What we must first establish is that these are not real-" he started

She threw her hands in the air, obviously irritated by what he was saying. "That's exactly what every other psych has said to me, Dr. Ryuzaki, and I-"

"_What _did you say?" he choked out.

"I _said_, that's exactly what every other shrink has said to me."

"What you called me-"

"That's what you call yourself, isn't it?" she pressed.

"But… I didn't tell you that."

There seemed to be a long pause, in which both participants in the conversation seemed to be deciding what was the best manner in which to process the information that was spewing out into the air all at once. Finally, Claire replied to L's indirect accusation with a smile.

"I said I knew who you were," she reminded him.

He leant forward and narrowed his eyes at her inquisitively. "How much do you know?"

"Enough."

He was uncertain of the way she behaved, and when he read her mind, he saw images there of his own bemused expression, bewildered and curious.

"Tell me about what you see," he instructed quietly.

"How about I show you?" she suggested. She shuffled toward him, leaning forward so that if she tilted her head, their lips would be touching.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Just look into my eyes," she told him.

Reluctantly, he did so, expecting to merely see the sea color of her irises, instead catching sight of something flickering within her pupils. The picture became clearer to him slowly. In front of him, his own self and a happier, healthier Claire stood, engaged in a discussion he appeared genuinely interested in. L said something and Claire responded with a true laugh that lit up her face. Suddenly, a strange occurrence caught her eye, meaning the happiness disappeared from her expression. She took a step back, in front of L, and crumpled in on herself, clutching her stomach.

It looked like she had been shot. Had she saved his life?

"That never happened…" he spluttered, pulling away from her.

"Yes, it did." For a moment, she looked hurt.

"No," he protested, standing and backing away, almost staggering. "No, it did not. I have no recollection of that ever happening."

"I know," she mumbled, bowing her head.

"Those are your delusions? Things that never happened?" He found his voice was bitter and angry, disgusted at having his face and past falsely told, stolen."

She finally gave him eye contact again, her eyes pleading. It was the first vulnerable show of emotion he had gotten from her since her arrival, and it did not please him, despite the triumph. "L, please…"

He froze.

"What did you call me?"

"Look, we have to talk, but only if you can get me out-" she begged.

"You called me L," he breathed, horrified.

"Because that's your _name_!" she shouted, frustrated. Tears sprang to her eyes. "I have never asked you for anything before-"

"Because I've never met you before!" he insisted.

"I've never asked for _anything_, and I need this. Just once. Please. Get me out of here."

He began to head towards the door, retrieving the key from his pocket and trying to ignore the crestfallen expression that showed her broken and lost.

"I can't. I don't know you."

"I… somewhere… the connection has to be somewhere in you…" she whispered.

" I don't know what you're talking about," he said coldly. "Goodbye, Miss Riddle." He turned away from her and slotted the key into the lock.

"C."

"Excuse me?" He glanced at her over his shoulder.

"You always called me C," she shrugged, wiping her eyes, defeated. "You said Claire suited me, but C just summed me up. One letter, one face, one person." Her smile was ever so slight, sad in reminiscence of something that had never happened. "And then you got tripped up deliberately by M."

He paused. "Goodbye, Miss Riddle."

Once he felt that he had paid his dues, he opened the door without looking back at Claire. He left her sitting there on the bed in her white patient's gown, pale and emotionally drained. It wasn't until she had stopped crying that she realized that she had gotten through an entire conversation without struggling with the letter L.

Once L had gone, she sighed and bowed her head.

"Goodbye, Mr. Lawliet."


	8. Decidophobia

L left the hospital in a hurry, passing an outraged Dr. Mason on his way toward the exit. She was fending off a brown-haired, bespectacled man in a white coat, pointing up at the St. Augustine Centre as he attempted to get through the entrance. She was shouting that they already had a full quota of psychiatrists and that he had better leave immediately should he wish to remain safe of accusations of deliberate impersonation of an authority figure. He decided it best to get out of the building fast lest he be revealed as a fraud.

As he made his way toward the parking lot, where he knew B and Rose would no longer be waiting for him, he was tripped up by a redhead, who glowered at him with such a severe level of dislike that he was almost taken aback. He met her glare with an expression of surprise. Her voice was bitter and repulsed.

"You stupid fucking doctors," she spat. "You don't have any clue what you do to people, do you? Huh? You just beat them down with a label and leave them to the vultures. There is an innocent person in there, someone that has absolutely nothing wrong with them!"

"Melody again…" Mason sighed, heading towards them, pushing the brown-haired man from the corridor in the same direction. "Melody, how many times…? We cannot let her out without a signed slip from her psychiatrist telling us that she is ready to leave. And she has no permission, so for the time being, she's not going anywhere. You can't drag others into this daft venture, either, got it? She's ill, you have to understand that."

"But she's _not_," 'Melody' protested, frustrated. "She's perfectly sane, there's nothing wrong with her-"

"Hallucinations are not the sign of a greatly healthy or happy person, in my experience," Mason disagreed. "Now go home, Melody, for goodness' sake. We'll inform you of any changes. God knows you're the only one who checks up on her."

"Can't you let me in to see her, just once?" Melody begged

"Look, I'm not even supposed to be giving you information on her condition and its progress, Melody," Mason sighed, massaging her neck. "You're not a member of her family. You're just a friend. It's only because you're the only one who's shown interest in her that I'm allowing this for you. Please, don't make this any more difficult than it is."

"Fine," Melody mumbled. "Bye, Doc."

"All right, come on, M," the young man encouraged, leading the redhead toward a small car.

L took a few steps away from the conversation, heading home with a brief wave to Mason, when he halted in his tracks.

"_And then you got tripped up deliberately by M."_

He turned back for a fleeting moment, then dismissed the memory of the confined, isolated Claire Riddle's words as a mere coincidence, not to be taken seriously in any shape or form. There was no chance of her actually being right, not in any non-hypothetical situation. Theoretically, yes, perhaps. In reality – no way.

Now he just had to figure out how to get home.

**XXX**

Being back in a regular class with other Wammy's students felt extremely strange, especially when they had spent so long away from all of them during their time in hiding. People who had previously made it their business to worsen the Zapped students' lives now kept their distance, aware of the power that they wielded. Lara, Mello, Matt and Tessa in particular now got a much easier time than they had. Ben had never been the brunt of jokes anyway, because he was tall (though not stocky).

Later, in a leisure room, one of the girls, Linda, was flirting outrageously with Mello, seeing as Near was poring over a physics book that looked like it would give Stephen Hawking a headache. Lara clenched her fists and bit her lip, trying to ignore Linda's advances. This had been happening a lot recently, and it wouldn't be long until it got on her last nerve.

Tessa nudged her. "Hey, why don't you just go tell the bitch to back the hell off?"

"It's so unnecessary," she mumbled. "I mean, it's not like I don't trust Mello. Besides, she's not a bad person. She doesn't deserve to be yelled at by somebody like me."

"You what?" Tessa laughed. "She's hitting on your boyfriend! I'm not telling you to hang, draw and quarter her, girl, I'm just saying it would be best for you if you stood up for yourself and what is rightly yours once in a while. You're a nice girl, Lara, and sometimes I think you're just a bit _too_nice."

Lara shrugged, folding her arms. "There's no point in being mean to her. I suppose she'll learn in her own time."

Misa entered the room with Matsuda, both laughing at a story Matsuda had been telling about when he'd engaged in a discussion with a woman he'd thought was a lesbian, and it turned out that she'd been married to a man with two kids. Misa tried not to giggle too much usually; it caused way too many laughter lines on her face for her liking. However, the way he recounted the events made it so difficult not to laugh.

"You didn't!" she gasped. "Oh, God, I bet she was so angry with you after that…"

"She would have been if her husband hadn't gotten to me first," he admitted gingerly. "I swear, I have never run so fast in my entire life, and that includes fighting off governments or a screwy hydrokinetic."

"Matsu, that's so… so brilliant," she giggled. "I haven't laughed like this in so long!"

Tessa picked up on this and grinned, observing the events unfolding before her very eyes with undisguised glee. She elbowed Matt in the ribs and gestured to the pair with a nod of the head, who were conversing with warmth and ease. They went to join the others and smiled in acknowledgment.

Misa hummed a sweet-sounding tune as Matsuda explained the story to the rest of the group. He had them in hysterics by the end, Lara cringing into her hand. They discussed their training, how all of their PE lessons were being changed to fit in with their new schedules. Of course, Matsuda and Misa, no longer a part of compulsory education, were not inclined to merge with specific appointments, with free access to practice areas at any time as they had.

"I'm a little nervous about using my power so publicly, after being told to keep it hidden for such a long while," Lara confessed, "but I suppose that it was only to be expected. We couldn't stay underground for a huge amount of time, could we? Not without problems?"

"It's not our problem if people won't accept us for what we can do," Matsuda told her reassuringly, "it's theirs. We too are still human. They have to avoid bigotry if they want a smooth transition."

"Matsu's right," Matt agreed. "What with governmental pressures and stuff, the public will be forced to conform to accepting children of the storm into regular society eventually. This whole ordeal with the President and Prime Minister will cool down at some point, and then we'll be there to help ease people into a fairer opinion of us."

The door opened again and L walked in this time, looking even more tired and worn than usual. He sat down with his knees up to his chest on a chair near where the rest of the others in the room were standing. Immediately, Tessa, Matt and company navigated their way towards him to deliver the message given to them that afternoon.

"Hey!" Matt called. "Hey, L! Whoa, man, you look beat… we wanted to let you know we've got something to say-"

"If it's an insult, please put into writing until I am feeling up to reading it," he deadpanned.

"No, it's not an insult, don't panic," Tessa insisted. "It's just that Elisabeth said to tell you that she's been searching for you. She kind of figured you'd gone out somewhere after a bit, but that doesn't mean she's happy with you."

"Yeah, I'd have my story straight if I were you," Matt chortled.

"All right, let me think, let me think," L sighed. "Uh… hm… Misa. Misa, will you stop that humming, please? I'm trying to brainstorm."

"You can't say that, it's offensive to epileptics-" Lara cut in.

"Sorry, it's a song I came up with, it's been stuck in my head all day," Misa admitted sheepishly. "I'll stop now."

"Hang on a second," L said, startled. "Misa, hum that again."

She did so, keeping a steady rhythm and pleasant sound. L stood suddenly.

"Does that song have words to it?" he asked.

"Yeah, but it's not in English," she shrugged. "_Ki__wo__tsukete__kami__sama__wa__miteru__…_"

"Who sings that song?" L blurted out. "Did you say it was on the radio or something?"

"Um… no," she replied. "No, I came up with it myself. I came up with it not long after Elisabeth told me she was looking for you."

L stared at Misa in complete and utter disbelief, realizing with a sinking feeling exactly what he'd done, letting his denials and pride get in the way of something that had been gazing him directly in the face. How could he have let himself be so blind? But, then… those things she had seen, the mad, unbelievable things she had shown him in her eyes, could those be true too?

He called Watari via his cell phone and ordered him to meet him down by one of the cars. The old man looked surprised by the unexpected instruction when the two finally met. They climbed into the front seats and drove to the St. Augustine Centre, L explaining on the way.

**XXX**

The evening was just beginning to take over as sunlight became orange and the sky went darker. Three people had gathered in one house belonging to a suspended lawyer and were preparing themselves to eat their dinner, a simple fare of the chicken dippers, curly fries and peas they'd found in Tom McElroy's freezer. They had five minutes before they could serve up, so the trio sat around Tom's kitchen table in a somewhat awkward silence.

"So," Drew finally said, "Tom, are you still going to try to go to the Zapped?"

"Of course I'm going to go," Tom snapped. "What am I supposed to do if I don't? Just hide the fact that I have wings from everybody on the planet, and the possibility that I can fly along with that?"

"It's not like you can't," Melody put in.

"Well, is that your suggestion?" Tom sighed.

"No," Melody protested. "My suggestion was to get Claire the fuck out of the St. Augustine Centre, but now it seems that particular plan has gone down the pan. Those shrinks just won't let her go."

"Why are you so set on her leaving? Why can't we deal with that whole issue once we're out of the public eye and we're part of the Zapped?" Tom asked, taking a gulp of water.

"Because some people's needs are more important than yours," Melody growled.

"Mel," Drew said warningly, and she instantaneously softened. Her shoulders relaxed and she murmured an apology to Drew. "Thank you. Now, this is important. Do you want to go to the Zapped tomorrow? I'm sure if we work hard we can find them in that time. If we track a particular license plate, say, the one on the car that took Volta to London a little while ago, we can find them easily."

"Drew, you're so smart," Melody exulted. "I don't know why you're not the lawyer. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, I think it's great you're a librarian-"

Tom rolled his eyes. "If you two lovebirds are going to be like this all the time, I'm going to eat my food elsewhere. I don't want to throw it up."

"I've had to watch you cooing over girls countless numbers of times," Drew reminded him dryly.

"Yeah, but I didn't properly like any of them," Tom muttered. "Seeing actual affection is absolutely nauseating."

"Well, you'll have to learn to deal."

"Only until tomorrow," Tom responded, "when we find the Zapped."

* * *

><p><em>Updated quickly because of persistence from my buddy M. Buzzed for the next chapter, as many interesting things shall unfold.<em>

_By the way, the phobias mentioned so far have been_

_1. Glossophobia - fear of public speaking  
>2. Aviophobia - fear of flying<br>3. Acousticophobia - fear of sound or voice  
>4. Ornithophobia - fear of birds<br>5. Bibliophobia - fear of books  
>6. Acrophobia - fear of heights<br>7. Gynophobia - fear of women  
>8. Decidophobia - fear of making decisions<em>

_Please leave a review, they would be much appreciated. Thanks - by the way, I do not own Tessa. She belongs to Zephyr Morpheus Lee, for those who have forgotten._

_C._


	9. Basiphobia

Watari was astonished to have the request that he should drive L to the St. Augustine Centre for the Psychologically Unstable, especially when he knew of no connection for L to go there. He was not aware of any reason for this abrupt visit: he had sent no criminals to the institution, he had no friends or relatives there, nor had he ever actually set foot within the Centre's walls as far as he knew. So why the idea? It was not until he explained that it became clearer.

Claire sat back in her room, staring at the white wall ahead of her. The staff belonging to the St. Augustine Centre had been astonished by her sudden activity that afternoon, the willingness to speak with a psychiatrist and the life in her face that did not echo resentment. They had seen some of the exchange between Dr. Ryuzaki and his patient because of the installed safety cameras, and had been fascinated. The cameras had gone quirky a little after Claire began asking questions of her new doctor. They had not seen the rest.

Now, night approaching fast, the patient had slipped back into a nigh catatonic state, though this time, it was different. Before, it had appeared that Claire Riddle could not speak, could not express herself well enough to be understood. The new situation was strange; it seemed that she _would __not _speak, would not move out of defiance. What she was defiant against was a puzzle to the staff. They did not think it was anything they had done.

The next thing they all knew, Dr. Ryuzaki was making an appearance, a determined expression in his eyes, though not his face, as he remained outwardly unfeeling. Without a word, he went past reception to a set of filing cabinets and opened the drawer labeled 'consent forms'. He did not ask permission for the borrowing of a pen from the desk. He merely picked it up and, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, scrawled a signature in appalling script, in addition to writing another name.

"Take this. File it. Process it," he ordered the receptionist as he handed over the form.

"O-okay." There was no contest as to whether he was truly a doctor or not. The authority he possessed in his monotone was not to be ignored, no matter how unlikely the situation seemed. She took the form and read it quietly to herself. Finally, she entered the information into a patient's record and it was stored away on some rarely used floppy disk.

Claire was bemused as to why her door was being opened. She had already eaten, practically having the food forced down her throat in order for her to physically swallow it, instead of keeping the food in her mouth until the orderlies weren't looking and spitting it out again. Was she being tested again? Her former psychiatrist had liked to prey on her at her weakest, when she was tired. She wasn't very strong anyway, so supporting her all the way to a room for 'therapy' was easy for someone like Dr. Johann.

The Dr. Johann who now had a broken nose.

What she definitely had not expected, regardless of all of the possibilities of orderlies, nurses or doctors, was the man who walked through her door. The sight of L there threw every single one of her previous ideas out the window with tremendous ease.

"Stand up, Claire," he told her sharply, and, staggering a little with the speed of it, she did so.

'_What the hell is he doing here?'_

"You are no longer required to remain at this institution," he answered her thoughts, "and seeing as I was informed you have no place to retire to, I took it upon myself to arrange temporary accommodation for you. Of course, this is not the ideal venue to discuss these matters, so if you would be so kind as to assist me in removing yourself…?"

She walked forward in confirmation, shakily, and forced herself to make it down the corridor to the elevator without her knees giving way. He did not offer to support her, instead letting her push herself, letting her gain independence in a manner she had not been allowed by anybody else since waking up from her coma. In a way, she disliked him for not helping her, yet in another, she appreciated the freedom.

He stepped into the elevator with her. She was beginning to lose her breath a little, whereas he was perfectly serene. He did not move.

"I believe you wish to reach the ground floor," he remarked dryly.

Despite herself, she smiled shrewdly back, dragging her feet to the buttons on the elevator panel and punching the patronizing capital G so that it glowed in response and the elevator jerked into life. After a few moments of intense, tangible silence, there was a _ping _as the doors opened of their own accord. The two left observed the receptionist, whose eyes were practically the size of tennis balls at the sight of a pale, dark-haired man being followed out of the building by a dark blonde girl in a white gown.

The back door of the car opened and Watari saw L clamber inside. "So, would you mind telling me what you were thinking of doing-?"

He froze when Claire nearly fell in the car. Just to speed things up, L put a hand under one of her arms and yanked her inside so that she was sitting up properly. He leant across and shut the door for her, meeting Watari's eyes.

"Is there a problem, Watari?"

His white-haired guardian cleared his throat discreetly. "Problem? Oh, uh, no, not at all, Ryuzaki. Um… where exactly are we taking your guest?"

"Back to Wammy's House," he responded.

"Really?" he asked, startled.

"Back to Wammy's House," L repeated firmly. He looked at Claire quizzically. "You cannot make a strong first impression wearing a hospital gown. There may well be some clothes in the back." He checked. "Yes, there is a Zapped suit in there. Put that on."

"What, now?" she choked out. "You are joking."

"Not at all. Or would you rather turn up in your current attire?" he pressed.

"Well, I can't change right in front of you," she said absolutely. She pushed herself up and over into the back where the outfit was. "No peeking, or I swear I will knock your block off."

"You can just about walk," he pointed out.

She glowered at him. "I'm sure as hell not saving your sorry ass in _this_universe."

"I doubt you have the resources to do so, regardless of your potential intentions," L muttered.

She couldn't help herself. He was acting annoyingly cocky, as if she was a total idiot instead of being a universe-seeing escapee of an asylum. The difference between the two was massive, a gap bordering on becoming a canyon.

"Want to bet?" she snapped. "How many people know your _name_?"

"I'll have you know Ryuzaki is not my name-"

"Perhaps not, but L Lawliet is!" she barked.

Suddenly, the car screeched to a halt and both young people in the back of the car smashed their heads: L against the chair in front of him, Claire against L's seat. She emerged from behind the seat and met the black eyes of her antagonist.

"I don't seem so crazy now, do I?"

**XXX**

Near sat up abruptly, knocking down a string of dominos. He had been automatically lining them as he listened to the conversation between the rest of the Zapped, just after L had unexpectedly run out. The dominos sped and clicked along a line, which curved and began to form… a word, or what looked like it. He had not planned this. Slowly, he stood up, taking in what had been written out in front of him.

Tessa stopped talking, seeing Near's frozen form. She went to join him and gasped, eyes widening at the strangeness of it all. Black dominos had fallen to reveal a white background with clear black block capitals.

PHANTOM.

"Phantom? What's that supposed to mean?" Tessa blurted out. She glanced at the albino questioningly. "Did you set out to spell this?"

"Why would I?" he deadpanned.

"Matt!" Tessa called. "On the internet, you ever heard of an organization called Phantom, or of a government codename Phantom?"

"Uh… no," he answered honestly. "Never. Why? What's up?"

"Maybe this is a warning," Near suggested. "Usually my visions are triggered by some future event that should be altered. This could be the exception, but I am not inclined to think so. 'Phantom' does not traditionally have positive connotations."

"You did this unconsciously, but you haven't had a full-on vision accompanying it," Matt exclaimed. "Lise always said what you did was deduction, not psychic power, so technically the problem here should be that you cannot predict with certainty what happens from this point."

"Well, that shoves Near's power down the toilet," Lara mumbled.

"She's right," Mello agreed. "Near, if you can't figure out what's going to happen, your power stinks pretty bad right now."

"Why is it screwing up so bad _now_?" Tessa thought aloud. "My time travel fucked it up before, and that made sense. This is different. He's only getting part of the vision, just glimpses of it, and not even consciously. Something's wrong. For some reason, the future problem won't show Near its face like Takada did."

"Phantom?" Matt repeated.

"Okay, if you're saying this place is haunted, I am well and truly freaked out," Lara admitted, holding her hands up in surrender. "Congratulations, you've won. Now let's be realistic here."

"We're not saying there are malevolent ghosts," Tessa sighed, "we already know what lies beyond death because of Rose. We just want to get a bit more information so that Near can try deducing things again. 'Phantom' could be anything."

Misa spoke up. "That's the issue. Knowing our sort of luck, it really could be _anything_."

The door swung open and Elisabeth appeared. The blatant display of irritation on her face made Lara take an automatic step back. She was glowering at nothing in particular.

"We saw him half an hour ago, and then he left again," Ben put in before she could say anything. "He's probably not avoiding you, just hasn't seen you today."

"I'm worried about him. Where could he be? And what could he possibly be doing that could more important than finding this rogue Child? They blew up Downing Street, for God's sake!" she said, frustrated.

"I'm sure he's just getting his priorities straight," Matsuda sighed.

"Is that a car?" Mello asked, frowning. He strained his hearing to listen for the sound of tyres rolling up gravel. Elisabeth went to the window to check.

"Yes," she murmured confusedly. "Yes, it is. What the hell is going on…?"

What puzzled her in particular was not that L had gone out. She had been forced to get used to this idea throughout the idea. No, what was strange was that _three _people got out of the car. Two men she recognized, and… wait, _what_? A woman? What was a woman doing here? Elisabeth's heart skipped a beat, and she could feel the concern being etched into her face as she watched them approach the front door. She swept out of the room, followed quickly by the rest of the Zapped.

There were met by the sight of L entering the hallway. Behind him was Watari, and a young woman with dark blonde hair, wearing Watari's heavy black coat. Underneath, it appeared she was wearing a Zapped suit, one of those designed by Elisabeth. This caused a cold ripple to sweep over the dark-haired young woman's body in a way she found it difficult to describe. It was a twinge of annoyance and panic all at once, tensing her back muscles and making her swallow the words she felt building in her throat.

She finally regained composure enough to speak to her boyfriend.

"Okay," she said. "Who is this?"

"Do you only recognize me when I'm lying down with my eyes closed?" the dark blonde asked wryly.

"Excuse me?"

"Elisabeth," L murmured, "meet the newest member of the Zapped."

* * *

><p><em>Sorry for my case of taking a week or so off from this - I have had other priorities, such as upcoming exams (bleck!) and other such 'frivolities'.<em>

_Here's hoping I actually still have a couple of readers, and that those readers will review to let me know they're still here. Sorry if this chapter seemed a bit slow; the more exciting stuff is coming up soon._

_C._

_P.S. 'Basiphobia' is an inability to stand, or fear of walking._


	10. Cacophobia

"You cannot be serious," Elisabeth choked out. "She looks like she's just escaped from an asylum-" She was cut off by the shifty glance that the dark blonde and L shared briefly. Elisabeth could only gape in utter disbelief and horror. "She's just escaped from an asylum, hasn't she?"

"If it makes you feel any better, it was only for hallucinations, and not for mindless, psychopathic violence," the younger woman offered.

"Yeah, that makes me feel tons better," Elisabeth said sarcastically. She looked at L, irritated. "How can you even think of doing this? I mean, I haven't seen you all day, and then when I finally do see you, turning up out of the blue, you've got some cheap slut with you!"

The so-called 'cheap slut' raised her hand. "Sorry to butt in, but I'm not a _cheap _anything."

"Do you even have a power?" she barked. "Or did you just tell him that to get out of the place that they were keeping you?"

"Elisabeth, it's Claire," L said icily.

Her eyes widened. "No." She walked forward to examine the gaunt figure before her, darker shadows beneath her eyes, paler skin and more prominent cheekbones than when she had last seen her. In general, she appeared less carefree and more hostile. It was a little frightening to witness the results of a change this drastic.

The rest of the Zapped, excluding Emilia and Light, held their breaths as Elisabeth approached Claire. She looked down on her until suddenly she stepped back sharply, shocked. She gawked in horror, the fear surprising her. Never in a million years had she expected to be scared of going near a small, recently skinny pizza delivery girl. However, this had changed it all. L moved forward and put a hand on Claire's shoulder.

"What did you show her?"

"There was this glass just coming out of nowhere," Elisabeth spluttered. "This glass… and it tore right through me. She… she made me watch myself _die_! It never even happened… what kind of monster are you?"

Tessa's jaw dropped. 'Glass tearing through' her. She had observed the incident herself, and had gone back in time to change that two months after Elisabeth's death. It had been officially undone. It could not be changed again, could it? This Claire person had not even been present during the incident in the aquarium that had caused Elisabeth's accidental death and L's consequential suicide. How could a person know about something that technically never happened?

She felt a light pressure on her arm, and realized Matt was trying to speak to her. "Tessa? Contessa, are you all right?"

"Yeah," she mumbled. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure-?"

"I _said_, I'm fine," she cut him off.

He watched her walk away from him down the stairs, feeling somewhat deflated. All he had wished to do was clarify that she was actually all right. She had been spacing out; what was he meant to think? He decided on the spur of the moment she was, as she had said, fine, and let it go. It would do him no good to fret over it so much. With that resolution in mind, he returned upstairs.

**XXX**

Clarissa Deaver received the email at twenty past nine that evening. It was not a suspicious email. There was no strange content to be seen. The only bizarre thing about it was the fact that she had only a few seconds ago been thinking about her daughter, the young woman who had denounced her as a traitor and fled from her clutches in the halls of Thames House in order to save a mere _boy_. She could not have really been a child of the storm. Clarissa refused to believe it still.

This trip that was required took her to the part of the country that her daughter had been taken to by that group of _freaks_. A courthouse, where she would have to speak to a judge about legislation involving her department. It had been rumored that the government, concerned over their public image, sought to dismantle the PTD, the Paranormal Threats Department. After the extremely outraged uproar that had gone up around the country and world due to the Rose Beaumont incident, she had been glad that people did not know who worked for the Secret Service.

The email listed the others who would be attending the meeting, one of those people being Soichiro Yagami. Yagami's son, Light, had been the boy she met in the corridor at Thames House. Somehow, Yagami had no memory of the event ever occurring. There seemed to be a complete gap in his recollections, from turning the corner and seeing Emilia Deaver, then being evacuated from the building to keep the staff safe.

Many a time Clarissa had attempted to force Yagami to recall what had happened, to make him remember his son's presence in the situation, yet this appeared to be pointless. Light's conviction must have been severe in making his father forget he was there. His persuasion skills were undoubtedly powerful. Yes, that was it. Powerful enough to convince Clarissa's daughter that she was implicated. Why would he not want her as part of the team? She was young and lithe and beautiful. He probably wanted her, and that was why he had persuaded her to join him.

Clarissa had watched the news covering the conference between the US President, the British Prime Minister and Volta with venom. From murdering innocent government officials with her powers to discussing better rights for her kind… that made Clarissa's blood boil. Since the Thames House incident, she had been made to clean up after _their_mess. As soon as there was an explosion at ten Downing Street, she had known who was wholly responsible, and it was that group who called themselves the Zapped.

She began to pack her bags, wrote a note for her husband to read detailing the circumstances of her trip and placed it in an envelope for him to read on the kitchen table. Apparently, a hotel had already been booked for all of those attending the meeting in Winchester, so planning accommodation would be unnecessary. She printed off a copy of the email and set off, driving to the train station.

She wondered, ever so fleetingly, if she would see her daughter again.

**XXX**

The next morning, there was a light breeze. Tom opened the window to his bedroom and stepped out onto the tiny balcony he possessed that looked out on his small garden. He inhaled, wishing he could delve into that cool, crisp air and feel it on his back, under the wings he now had. Standing out in bare feet wearing a pair of pajamas his dad had bought him for the previous Christmas, he still did not feel cold. Heat thrummed in his veins, beating in his ears.

He would not stay this way. Not a chance in hell. Up against this urge to fly, he could no longer give a shit about Melody's friend. Regardless of whether Drew and his new (rather sudden) girlfriend approved of his actions, he was going to contact the Zapped today.

Part of his frustration stemmed from being temporarily suspended from practicing law. He loved the theatricality and drama of it all, of playing to a jury until they fell heads over heels for him, were hanging on his every word. He was one of those people who loved to be loved. Secretly, he'd always known that his younger brother was his parents' favorite son. He was thoughtful and intelligent, and quietly satisfied without making a big deal of it.

His mother loved the fact that Drew never back-chatted her. His father loved that Drew was considerate and reserved, the complete antithesis of Jean McElroy. Tom was the loud one, the seemingly confident one, the brash one who never thought things through.

That was what they thought of him? Well, it was time for him to live up to that reputation. He grinned to himself, went inside and changed into a pair of jeans. He wore no shirt. He took steps toward the balcony again.

**XXX**

Near froze on his way to one of the breakfast tables, dropping his plate. The Zapped were on their feet immediately, rushing over to him. He blinked again after a minute or so, and shook his head. His expression returned to its usual bored state, though the others were staring at him expectantly, excepting Claire, who had not gotten up from the table because she was too tired.

"A child of the storm," Near said in a monotone, "is going to do something incredibly stupid."

Matt couldn't help it. He laughed. "Who is it?"

"Somebody new," Near shrugged. "He's going to jump off the balcony of a two-storey building and see if it works." He frowned. "I think he's trying to get _our_ attention."

"Well, how does that work?"

A ghost of a smile flitted over Near's face. "We can always sit back and watch."

"Hell, no!" Elisabeth gasped. "Somebody get Near some paper." She shot him a withering glare. "Draw his face and I'll run it through the Internet, see if he crops up somewhere, get his phone number. Stop him."

Claire's voice was heard across the room, amused. "Why?"

"Why?" Elisabeth sounded like she was choking. "We know what's going to happen! We can't let him kill himself!"

"He's got to have a reason for jumping," Claire said. "I say let the good times roll."

"You would," the American replied bitterly. "Near, the picture."

**XXX**

Tom was on the brink of climbing up onto the wrought iron railing that stopped him from toppling off the edge of his balcony when his phone went off in the bedroom. Frowning, he turned around, picking it up and answering the unknown number. The person who greeted him had an American accent, and sounded like a woman.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Who is this?" he asked.

"This is Volta," she replied, "from the Zapped. Now, I don't what you're thinking exactly, but we know you're planning to jump. One of our people saw it. That's not a good idea. Our source thinks you're trying to get our attention. Can you tell me why? What if we hadn't seen you beforehand?"

Tom smirked. "It would've worked."

"Why?"

"I'm not an idiot, Volta. I know what I'm doing."

"Well, that's hardly clear to us, is it?" Volta said shrewdly. "No, we know you're a child of the storm. We want you to join us. So how's about you pick a time and a location and we come pick you up so we can talk?"

He paused. "Okay. One o'clock. There's a courthouse in Winchester."

"I know it," she responded dryly. "I warn you, there will be a lot of us there. Are you sure you want to make this meeting so public?"

"One o'clock, the courthouse," he reiterated. "Unless you're too scared for that? I know how much you guys all like to hide it out when the going gets tough."

"We know what you look like," Volta told him sharply. "We'll see you later."

"I'm sure you will," he grinned, only to hear the dialing tone in response.

The Zapped were better at finding people than he'd given them credit for. He'd only decided what he was going to do last night, and already they had discovered his location, his actions, his face and his cell phone number. This was going to be fun; he could feel it in his bones. Smiling smugly, he turned to his wardrobe. He had not expected to have to wear any of his suits until after his two-week-long suspension from law.

He picked out the one that he'd worn for his first ever trial, the particularly expensive black one that made him look exceptionally trim and professional. He adjusted his red tie when he heard his younger brother calling him from downstairs for breakfast. He had no idea what the day was going to bring, and Tom would have to be the one to explain.

"One minute!" he yelled back. He checked himself out in the mirror briefly and winked at his own dashing reflection.

"Tom!" called Drew again.

"All right, all right, I'm on my way…"

* * *

><p><em>Things will now be getting a lot more exciting than they have been recently, and I can promise that next chapter will have a lot happening in it, so keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter. ("Keep your eyes peeled" - isn't that a horrible expression?)<em>

_Cacophobia is the fear of ugliness. I mean, seriously, you get people like that? Ah, well..._

_Glad to see people are still reading and liking this story. Woop, woop! Tenth chapter!_

_Weirdly, although I get more people asking me to update "Red Alert", my other story, "The Darwinian Theory" has more reviews in terms of chapter-review ratios. You guys reading "Red Alert" have got something to beat._

_Love you all as always. You are the oil to my writer's drive._

_C._

_P.S. Sorry for the cliches. They are awful, aren't they?_


	11. Scopophobia

Tessa was exceedingly puzzled by the sound that came from Elisabeth's office that morning; the sounds of both paper flapping and female laughter. Fleetingly, she wondered if L and Elisabeth were… _busy_, and if she should just leave them to it. Then, deciding it only sounded like there was one person in the room, she tentatively opened the door and poked her head around it.

With the desk lamp switched on, Claire was sitting in the medical student's leather swivel chair and flicking through bits of stapled-together paper. After a couple of moments, she ceased her amusement, sighed and put the papers back on Elisabeth's desk, her back to the door.

Tessa jumped at the sound of her voice piercing the silence. "You can come in, Tessa. Or do you prefer Aeon? I can't quite decide what to call you."

Sheepishly, the brunette slipped around the door and closed it behind her, pressing her back against the wood. She shrugged. "So…" she mumbled, trying not to look too embarrassed at having been caught out. "What are you doing?"

In that moment, she was reminded that it should have been Claire that felt embarrassed, and not her. She was the one busting in on someone else's office like she owned the place! Tessa was definitely not in the wrong by joining her there and questioning her on her possibly – _probably__ – _illicit activities.

"Me? Oh." Claire picked up the papers. "I'm just looking at some medical notes."

"Aren't those supposed to be… you know… confidential?"

"Yeah, but that's not my problem," the blonde dismissed her. "And Elisabeth's got some of these wrong anyway."

"Is that why you were laughing?"

"Yes." She handed the teenage girl the papers. "Look. See for yourself."

Tessa, frowning, did so, and her eyes widened in astonishment. She glanced at Claire with a stunned, disbelieving expression. "These… these are _my _medical notes. You were looking through my notes? Why?"

"Elisabeth Reid considers herself the leading expert on the circumstances of the children of the storm, and their abilities," Claire murmured serenely. "She thinks that she has accurately deduced the manner in which the powers of the Zapped work. All of them."

"And… you don't think that she's got it right?"

Claire smiled. "No."

"Why not?"

Claire sat back in the swivel chair. "What do you think my power is, Tessa?"

"You showed Elisabeth something that upset her. You can show people what you imagine happening?" she guessed, biting her lip.

"Except you know that's not true, don't you?" she reminded her. "You know the truth, that Elisabeth dying in the aquarium happened. But you never told anyone else, because you thought it would… what? Frighten them? Make them treat you differently? Tessa, you know Elisabeth died. You know L died. So now… what do you think my power is?"

**XXX**

The press had already shown up when Tom, Drew and Melody clambered out of the car. There were swarms of them, clicking and yelling and snapping at people with their whirring cameras. The lights were bright with the flashes of bulbs and some twitched nervously as they sought their particular photographic target. Others were prepared with compact tape recorders and microphones.

Tom, Drew and Melody began their path up the white steps to the courthouse.

"Did you organize this?" Drew demanded of his brother.

Tom scowled at the reporters. "No."

"What the hell is going on, then?" Melody muttered.

"Whatever it is," Tom said, "it's big. Really big."

"Where are the Zapped?" Drew asked in an undertone. "Did they say whereabouts at the courthouse they would meet you?"

"No, but I'd bet anything that it's going to be a media frenzy if the press found out who they are," Tom replied shortly. "Just keep an eye out. You'll probably recognize Volta. You watch the news."

Drew nodded as Melody pointed to the main entrance of the courthouse and a flurry of journalists closed in. "Hey! There's someone leaving!" she exclaimed.

"Tom, isn't that the judge who had you suspended?"

"Yeah…"

"What's she doing?"

"She's a judge, it's okay. She actually has a right to be here. Unlike me." He straightened up his suit and, with a serious expression, made his way over to the journalists so he could hear what they were asking. He heard words such as, 'crime' and, 'sentence', but neither of those were a shock to him. "Justice Banks!" he shouted over the crowd. "Justice Banks! Over here!"

"Tom!" yelled Drew.

"Drew, look," Melody whispered, gesturing to the parking lot, from where approximately fifteen people were emerging. She quickly scanned them, as did Drew, who immediately rushed over to pull Tom away from talking to the judge.

"What is it?" he hissed.

"The Zapped are here."

"Get them out of here, right now," Tom warned. "The press cannot get a hold of this, they're like savages. We need them out."

"What's wrong?"

"I'll explain later, just get them the fuck out of here first."

**XXX**

In the courthouse, the recently disbanded Paranormal Threats Department were told to wait outside in the front hall before the meeting with the judge named Justice Banks would be able to take place. Clarissa wrung her hands. She was nervous about the fact that she was in the same city her daughter had been rumored to be hiding, and that she may, despite the chances being slim, have the opportunity to see her once more.

The large oak double doors opened slightly and a man in a suit nodded to them. "Are you ready? It's okay to go in now."

Finally, the doors opened completely, revealing something that made Clarissa's heart drop into her shoes. She had not expected this. None of them had. They had merely believed this was a chance to speak with a judge about presiding over the official removal of the PTD. But this… this was a courtroom, where, God help her, there was a jury and everything.

"Welcome, all of you," the judge said drily. "You appear shocked."

"What have we done?" Clarissa spluttered. "Why are we here?"

"Let us proceed formally. Take a seat."

They all did so, including Clarissa and Soichiro. Every single employee of the PTD looked sick to their stomachs, pale and shaky, unaware of what was coming next.

"In the case of the state versus the Paranormal Threats Department, the Paranormal Threats Department, particularly the leading officials in this section of government, are being charged and tried for crimes against humanity."

Clarissa leapt to her feet. "_What_?" she shrieked.

"Sit down, Mrs. Deaver, or I shall hold you in contempt of court. That's it."

"The defense?"

"Richard Hayward on behalf of Edison and Clyde."

"And prosecution?"

"Teru Mikami, employed by the state."

Crimes against humanity? That was where doing her job had gotten her? Could they not have had some warning of the horror they were about to face, or would that have been too kind? Soichiro Yagami remembered nothing of the incident that would certainly be mentioned in the future. Could they, and would they, still convict of a crime he did not remember committing?

**XXX**

"You're not Tom McElroy," Near pointed out blankly.

"I'm his younger brother, Drew," Drew admitted. "And this is Melody, my girlfriend."

Melody waved quickly, grimacing. "According to the prick back there, who'll join us shortly, we have to get you out of here."  
>"Why?" Rose asked.<p>

"He didn't really specify."

"What's going on over there?" mumbled Emilia, stepping forward. She caught sight of some people leaving the courthouse behind the judge and froze at once. She couldn't quite believe their luck – or rather, lack of it. Regardless of how much she wanted to turn and run, her legs felt splinted with ice, incapable of making any moves. All she could do was stare blankly up at the space her mother was walking, followed by Light's father. They were in handcuffs.

"Emilia," B warned her, "no."

"Mum," she choked out. "That's my mum!"

"Emilia, please, leave it," Lara pleaded. "Wait… what's she doing? Okay, get her… B, get Emilia away from here."

"I can only touch Rose or I'll take Emilia's power away," B protested.

"Exactly," Mello snapped.

He and B went forward to grab Emilia's arms, pulling her in the direction of the parking lot. That was when Clarissa Deaver saw her daughter, and she ran towards her. Like a rippling swarm of bees, the press noticed this. The guards rushed forward. Startled, the Zapped dispersed, leaving Claire observing. Clarissa snatched up Claire's hand angrily.

"Where is she?" she barked. "Where are they taking her?"

Soichiro was at Clarissa's side quickly, just as the guards yanked Clarissa towards the police cars. He patted Claire's shoulder briefly. "Sorry," he muttered, "she doesn't know what she's doing."

The reporters clamored in search of the disappearing Zapped, in addition to the ones being hauled off into custody. They didn't recognize Claire as a member of the Zapped, and so she was insignificant, disposable. One knocked her over, sending her toppling down the steps. She looked around, surprised by the sudden impact of the ground. Where was Watari? He had been there only moments ago. He must have gone to check up on Emilia.

"Are you all right there?" asked a male voice. She was met by the sight of a bespectacled, dark-haired man. He offered a hand and pulled her to her feet again. "You took quite a fall there."

"Clumsiness is a curse," she mumbled.

"My name's Teru."

"Uh-" She stopped herself from saying, 'I know', which would have seriously freaked him out, the poor guy. "Claire."

"Nice to meet you, Claire," he smiled, shaking her hand. He looked at the person standing behind her with a condescending grin. "Hello, Thomas. How are you holding up with your suspension?"

"I really don't think that's any of your fucking business, Mikami."

"Temper, temper." He checked his watch. "I must be going, McElroy. I have to deal with the paperwork for prosecution. Of course, you wouldn't understand the urgency, would you? You're going to be _lots_ of free time over the next two weeks."

"Hope you don't stab yourself with your pen, Mikami."

Mikami smirked. "See you around, McElroy."

"Don't get your hopes up."

The black-haired man shot Tom a relaxed look and set off without a word. He most likely felt that saying any more would be redundant. He had said his piece, and with a few sentences, angered Tom enough that he wanted to punch him. Finally, Tom turned to Claire. As if forcing herself, she shook his hand.

"I saw you with them," he explained. "You're Zapped, aren't you?"

She nodded. "I'm Claire."

"Right." He looked around, puzzled. "Where's everyone else gone? I mean, I saw those government people-"

"Probably back to the cars."

The press, disappointed with their lack of tangible material, began to scatter, returning to their media vans or crappy cars, affordable only through freelance earnings. Mikami had gone off to the parking lot also, leaving the two newer Zapped members standing around like lemons. Finally, Claire spoke up again, seeking to ease the awkwardness.

"What's going on with Clarissa Deaver? What's she doing at court?"

Tom sighed. "She and the rest of the recently disassembled Paranormal Threats Department are being tried for the abduction, torture and attempted murder of various civilians, and then some are just accomplices because although they didn't get directly involved, they helped to cover it up. All of this adds up to a pretty hefty charge. The usual. Your odd crime against humanity."

"No one's considering they were paid to do it?"

"Well, they would, but who's trying them? The state. And they didn't give specific instructions to do these things, just implied that they should round up all of the freaks, throw them in a room together and do what they could to get something useful out of them."

"Why the humanity bit?"

"They went against what is currently being viewed as an entirely new race of people, almost an ethnicity in its own right. It's affected too many people to count, and some still haven't been released."

"Shit."

"Yeah. You can imagine why I thought it's best the media didn't see the Zapped."

"How do you know so much about the case?" she asked, surprised.

"I'm a lawyer," he replied coolly, "I know about this kind of thing."

* * *

><p><em>Hello, everybody, and yes, I'm back again, updating after a long bout of illness and exams. This is probably going to be a revisited chapter for those who don't catch on easily in future...<em>

_I'm afraid I don't own the OC Tessa; she belongs to _**Zephyr Morpheus Lee**_, a lovely person who needs to update also._

_Thank you to all of my wonderful reviewers - you are the icing on my literary cupcake._

_C._


	12. Achluophobia

Misa Amane was not one to cause trouble on purpose. There was nothing to prevent her admitting yes, she liked attention, but not trouble. Trouble led to conflict, and she had never been one for conflict. Her natural instinct was to please. Even when whining, she never meant to stir up problems. However, when it came to it, she would fight back. And this was a moment to fight back.

Her boyfriend was reading a book about Carl Jung when she entered the room. It was like she wasn't even there by his response, just a nod in her direction with his eyes barely leaving the page. Carl Jung, a long-dead psychoanalyst, was more important to him than she was living and breathing, or at least that was how it appeared.

Taking a deep breath, she mumbled his name, only to receive a useless 'hm' in acknowledgment. Still his eyes did not move from the book's print.

"_Light_," she said firmly, louder than before. "Look at me when I talk to you."

This made him sit up and turn to look at her. Never before had she been the one giving instructions or asserting authority with him. In addition, this voice was not the whimpering whine of a girl who was not being listened to because she did not deserve to be heard. She definitely had a voice to be heard. Startled brown eyes observed the blonde idol steel herself and clench her fists.

"Light, I have something important to say to you, and to be honest, they're two words I've wanted to say for a while." She cleared her throat. "Fuck you."

"Misa?" he choked out.

"No, you hear me out!" she snapped. "I have put up with your superior crap when I know I'm not an idiot. I have done my absolute best for you for _so _long, because I thought you were perfect." Finally, she quieted and composed herself. "Light, when I think about what it is I've done to myself for this length of time, lying, saying it was okay, and it was my fault you didn't love me the way I wanted, I feel like such a total moron. Because it's not me. It's you."

Light bowed his head, taking the abuse with fair grace.

"I was okay with it until she came into your life," Misa shrugged. "I saw a change in you, that you weren't just an unfeeling asshole, that you were capable of loving, but just not me. I saw the way you looked at me, like I was a pest or dog shit on the bottom of your shoe. Then you looked at her, like she was the most amazing thing you'd ever set eyes on."

"Misa, I'm so-"

"It's okay, I guess, now the anger's out." She tucked a lock of stray golden hair behind her ear. "I mean, do I like you? Yes, very much so, and I probably will for a little while longer. But do I love you?" She sighed. "No. No, I don't think so. If I loved you, it'd be harder to walk away."

Exhaling slowly, Light stood. He put down his book. This was the first time he had ever felt such strong respect for his girlfriend – the day she was breaking up with him. Actually, well, dumping him. Ouch. Being _dumped. _He had never been dumped. It just didn't fit his image.

Swallowing his pride, he stepped forward and moved to embrace her, then realizing that was not such a good idea. Instead, he offered his hand for her to shake, which she accepted. He placed his other hand over hers out of compassion. Although full of his own self-importance, somewhat arrogant, quick to judge and often slippery as a snake, Light Yagami was not a _bad _person.

"Thank you," he said, "for being honest with me."

"Go on," she mumbled. "Go on and… you know… be with her."

**XXX**

The leads on anything phantom-related had not come to fruition, even chasing up on random strands of thought such as the progression of Rose's power. It had taken a backseat priority compared to the problems caused by the Prime Minister and President's possession, Clarissa Deaver and Soichiro Yagami's imprisonment and stopping Melody from strangling Claire because she had kept the entire Zapped ordeal a secret. Drew had managed to placate her, but only just. Unfortunately, trust was not something that was circulating throughout the group.

First off, Elisabeth was angry with L for hiding his curiosity about Claire and bringing her back to Wammy's House. Melody was annoyed at Claire for not being told the truth about the circumstances of her coma. Tom was irritated with Drew for clipping his wings, so to speak. Emilia was pissed off at everyone for not letting her speak to her mother at the courthouse. Misa was tired of Matsuda not making his move to ask her out. Tessa was disturbed by Claire's unknown intentions. Lara was exasperated by Mello not talking out his feelings.

By this time, tensions were running high. You could taste in the air like electricity as you wandered the halls, literally felt the cold shoulder emanating from people as they brushed past you in corridors. The situation was by far worse than the incident with Takada, for at least in that time they had all stood together in the face of a threat, and had been prepared in case of an open confrontation. In this climate, it looked like no one would protect each other.

Despite the new additions to Wammy's House in the form of Tom, Drew and Melody, there had been no welcoming party. Before, upon the arrival of newcomers, the people living at the House had always greeted them with warmth or at the very least, civility. After Claire had turned up out of the blue, there was proof that not all new arrivals came without hostility, ready to accept and be accepted. Now there was no guarantee that newbies would trigger a happy response.

Matt could not quite pinpoint the time at which the reaction of the Zapped had changed. Pondering, he walked around one of the science labs, where a giant rotating solar system model had been built. Moonlight glinted off the silver hoops keeping the planets in place, filtering in through the windows. He wondered if seeing the wider universe, beyond the orphanage and beyond the politics of children of the storm would put things into perspective.

A black figure, a silhouette, flickered across his vision, behind the solar system model. He frowned. "Is anybody there?" he called.

Swallowing, he took a step forward. "Hello?"

A small character stepped into the limited silver light. "Relax," Claire said, "it's just me."

Like that put his mind at rest. "Is everything all right?"

"I thought I might find you here," she shrugged. "Tessa told me you would be in your room, but Mello told me you would be here, and I suppose he knows you the best out of all of them, doesn't he?"

"Why were you searching for me?"

"I wasn't," she admitted. "I was just curious."

"That's weird."

"So are you," she countered.

"I guess we all are," he said. "I mean, we can't be called normal, can we? Look at us."

"Mm." She traveled around to the window and sat on a stool nearby so she could look out at the orphanage grounds. "These power cuts had better not last much longer. People will start walking into things."

"Why do they keep happening, anyway?" Matt asked.

"Council. Some big construction keeps using up a lot of power. Knocks the grid for six. They'll fix it, I imagine, but in the meantime, Elisabeth's going to be exhausting herself trying to manipulate electricity that isn't there," Claire sighed.

"That sucks."

"Doesn't it just?" she smiled wryly. After a moment's silence, she turned back to him. "Matt, does your power bother you?"

"What?" he stammered, startled.

"Does it bother you?" she repeated. "That you know you're never going to die whilst everyone else drops like flies around you?"

He had never been asked that question before, and it was not something he knew how to answer. "I try not to think about it."

She chuckled at his carefully worded response, as though he were a politician under fire from the press. "But if I told you that I had a way to remove your power, and you'd live just as long as everyone else, would you take that opportunity?"

"I… I…"

"I'm not saying there is a way. It is purely hypothetical."

"Oh." He bowed his head as he thought. A chance to get rid of his power? Become mortal again, like the others? But would he still be considered special if he was no longer immortal?

"Matt, I don't think I could take your power away from you. Once awakened in us, it is an integral part of us. Our powers all relate to something in us, some part we didn't know existed until it happened. _Could _you dispose of that?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "I really don't know."

"Just a question," she murmured, eyes straying back to the window again.

His hands curled up into fists. Something in him felt invaded, intruded upon. A certain unspoken sentiment hanging in the air left him uncomfortable. That she had asked the question only out of interest was debatable. He hardly knew the woman, and yet she seemed to know a scary amount of information about him.

"What about you?" he mumbled. "If you were immortal and you could get rid of that, would you?"

She frowned. "I'm not you, Matt. I don't have the same things to live for. In fact, I must admit I have very _little _to live for. In another life, I have a lot. We're quite good friends, you and I."

Matt didn't quite know what to say to that, so, wordlessly, he patted Claire on the shoulder and left the room. That night, as he began to drift off to sleep, he was haunted by her words.

"_If I told you I had a way to remove your power, and you'd live just as long as everyone else, would you take that opportunity?"_

**XXX**

Rose awoke to the sound of fingernails tapping rhythmically against glass, her eyes snapping open. B did not even start as she sat up. She rubbed the dust from her eyes and looked around the room. Emerging from the darkness was a familiar figure, the same skinny sixteen-year-old, cheekbones sharply prominent and eyes the color of black coffee. It was impossible not to recognize those pointed shoulders.

Alternative could have grown up to become a very handsome young man in life. Instead, he had resorted to suicide and now could only speak to two people on the entire planet for the rest of eternity.

"A," Rose groaned, trying to gather her bearings. "For Christ's sake, it's two in the morning. What do you want?"

"Oh, _that's _the greeting I get? I haven't seen you for months, and that's how you respond." He folded his arms, the loop of rope he always carried with him still in his right hand. "I haven't had anyone to talk to. Do you know how boring that gets?"

"All right, all right," she muttered. "So what did you need to talk to me for?"

A's entire demeanor suddenly exuded severity. He took another step forward, and then another, until he was little more than a foot away from Rose. He knelt down so his face was level with hers, seeing as she was sat on the bed.

"It's really important you listen to me right now," A said seriously. "Because there's a lot you don't know quite yet, and it's going to come up. You have to watch out for ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Rose sighed. "Jesus, A, I'm surrounded by ghosts all the time. How am I supposed to be wary of every single specter that crosses my path? I get on the bus and I see a bloody ghost, I can't get away from them. Sometimes I can't even tell they're dead until someone walks through them, unless they look like you, in which case there's no way they're alive."

"That's my point," A said sternly. "Sometimes you can't tell the difference between a ghost and a normal person. You _have to _learn how to tell them apart, Rose, because things are about to get really tricky. I don't want my only link to the human world in a hole in the ground because I didn't warn them of what was coming."

"A, it's late." She swung her legs back under the covers and pulled the blanket up to her chin. "Us live people need sleep, something you're not all that familiar with, so can you bother me with this in the morning? I'll do some training, I'll figure out a way to tell the difference, but in the meantime, I'm going to catch a few hours."

A stood in the doorway until she fell asleep. If she didn't listen to him, that was her prerogative. More fool her when people began to die.

* * *

><p><em>So, yeah, after my brief stay in Hermitville, this is what I churn out. Due to exams and things that are going on and you guys don't care about, my output will be somewhat slow, but more likely. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and please let me know you're still there so I'm not writing for empty cyberspace.<em>

_Thanks!_

_C._

_P.S. 'Achluophobia' is the fear of the dark._


	13. Genophobia

The next day, something did not feel quite right. The morning passed easily without event, but Rose had told B of A's nighttime visit, and she had actually not seen him since then, despite saying she would deal with his cryptic messages when she was wide awake. They had all eaten breakfast, and then Matt had agreed to get some tools together to fix the air conditioning in the room that had become the Zapped common room.

Drew and Melody followed suit, as did Mello, Lara and Tessa. Ben was busy, apparently, learning to lift much heavier objects out in the garage. Near threw them all bored glances before traipsing out to the common room, where he could built a house of cards. There was a moment of thought for Misa and Matsuda, who knew that Light and Emilia would be there, however these negative feelings dispersed and they agreed to sit in the same room. Elisabeth busied herself with paperwork that checked on the world's governments in the common room.

L was about to follow them all when he remembered he needed to collect a file on a new case Watari had picked out for him. Halfway down the corridor, he realized that the door to the room he used as his study was slightly ajar. Suspicious, he pushed the handle down and entered. Immediately, he saw his black swivel chair was occupied. In the space he should be sitting in sat a small young woman with dark gold hair.

Her smile surprised him. Never had he witnessed Claire behaving quite so disarmingly, wearing makeup and nicer clothes. In one hand she held the file that he sought, her other hand free as her nails tapped against the wood of his desk.

"Good afternoon, Claire," he muttered. "May I have the file? I was just about to work with it."

"Of course you can," she said wryly. She rose from the chair and sat on his desk, a few feet of air between them. And this air was beginning to crackle. Her crossed legs were bare, a skirt he had not seen her wear cutting off halfway down her thighs.

He stepped forward, closing the distance a little, and took the file out of her hand. As soon as the paper left her fingers, she stood so that her body was inches from his, absolutely parallel in posture, seeing as he had straightened up to stop her from coming into physical contact with him. Regardless of the knowledge that she was not his girlfriend, and that he did have a girlfriend, he found himself incapable of moving.

"I must ask you to step back," he said, voice coming out unintentionally strangled.

"Why?" she asked. She sounded amused. "Is there anything wrong?"

He had no answer to that. Of _course _there was something wrong. Everything about this situation was so terribly, terribly wrong. What was worse was when she ran her hands down his arms, sending goose-bumps across his pale skin. He may have been nigh emotionless most of the time, but he was still a man. He still _felt_. She looked a little hurt that he was not responding, so placed her hands either side of his face.

"Sorry," she murmured. "I just can't help it."

With that short, apparently adequate explanation, she leaned in to press her lips to his, forcing his mouth open. Every fiber of his being screamed for her to stop, except for that all-powerful part of his brain that was extremely turned on by the forbidden aspect of it all. This same part of his brain was the part that made him stay stock-still where he was instead of shoving her away.

Her hands had found their way underneath his shirt, her lips now at his neck. Automatically, L's knees began to buckle somewhat.

_Push her off, _he thought desperately. _Tell her to go away, or you'll do something you'll regret!_

Somehow, she had managed to pull him over to the desk so that she could sit and wrap her legs around his waist. He could not help kissing her back a bit – okay, a _lot – _when her hips moved.

"Someone's not so reluctant now," she hissed in his ear. "No, don't be embarrassed… it's okay…"

But it wasn't, and he knew that, and that was what was driving him toward her, what was making him truly step over the line. The atmosphere was intensifying in heat, particularly considering that she had begun to unzip his jeans. Surprised by her forwardness, he kissed her back. She had him eating out of the palm of her hand, his emotions on a string she was pulling.

"I know you want to fuck me," she laughed breathlessly. "I'm way more fun than her… she's far too _dull _for you…"

He gasped, winded, as she pulled him close. Suddenly, her movements stopped. Her face, tucked into the crook of his shoulder, had teeth clenched and eyes enraged. Unexpectedly, she stood up and kissed him, receiving a fervent response, before stepping around him.

"I'll see you later," she smirked. "There's more where that came from."

And then she disappeared out of the door. Open-mouthed and trying to gather his thoughts, he was left standing with his jeans around his ankles. He was not sure what she had been attempting to achieve by doing what she had done, but she had definitely managed to confuse him. In that moment, guilt slammed into him with the force of a truck travelling at ninety miles per hour.

This thing with Claire… did that count as having an affair, or cheating on Elisabeth? Did that make him a bad person? Technically, he hadn't had a chance to think, for she had been all over him. Given a few minutes more, she would have been on the table ready for him.

He shook his head forcefully. What the _fuck _had that been about?

**XXX**

"Are you all right?" Soichiro asked his colleague, curious. "You tuned out for a moment there. You looked like you were in some kind of dream."

Clarissa leant forward, head in her hands. She was gritting her teeth and curling her small white hands into fists repeatedly, unfurling before tensing again. Several times the warden had been in to check that she was not dead despite her still, rigid frame and blank, unseeing eyes. Blonde hair fell across her face in a veil, masking the cool blue eyes that were a pale, older imitation of her daughter's. Dead. Empty.

"I'll be all right. My mind was just… somewhere else."

"Thinking about your daughter?" Soichiro guessed, recalling her telling him about the young woman.

"Something like that."

"I think about my son an awful lot too," he admitted. "I don't know what happened to our family. I just... I really wish I could get inside his head sometimes."

"Mm."

"I'm sorry I can't remember what happened in that place. No matter how many times I try to conjure up those images in my mind, I get a headache. I can't focus," he shrugged. "I doubt that my memories would be much use here, anyway."

"The lawyer that's been provided for us looks about as much use as a chocolate fireguard," Clarissa muttered, sitting up properly and resting her head back against the wall. She moved her hair away from her face. "That other guy's much too sharp for him. We'll be lucky to get ten years in prison."

"It was our _job_," Soichiro said. "They can't arrest us for obeying orders."

"There was another case of people only obeying orders, and they were hanged," Clarissa reminded him, "after something called the Nuremberg trials."

**XXX**

The common room was abuzz with light conversation considering the previous severity of the atmosphere. They discussed how they had escaped from prison with Melody and Drew, who listened intently. Matt had been the one to initiate action first, by disguising himself as a library volunteer handing out books on a small trolley around the jail. From then on, after smuggling in C4 and his smoke grenade cannon, breaking out B, Ben, L, Near, Light and Mello had been a total doddle. With the rest of their powers on board, getting the girls out was hardly difficult. Ben's ability to move locks with his mind was simple, Light making the prison officers forget them useful and Mello's strength often utilized.

As the story progressed, from Matt's conning a policeman into letting him into the compound to their rental of a small property in Winchester, Claire busied herself handing out drinks she'd prepared. She chuckled at the appropriate points along with the others. She didn't notice L slipping in. She merely returned to the sink to wash out some cups and glasses that had been left on the side.

"Claire," mumbled L.

"Yes?" she asked.

"We need to talk."

"I was thinking the same," she agreed. "Look, about Elisabeth's research, I'd really like to help, I think I could contribute a lot, seeing as I can understand from another perspective, and I'm sure we have figured it all out at one point or another-"

"I meant that we needed to talk about that… _event_… in my office earlier," he corrected her, voice strained.

She blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"I have thought about it," he explained, "and I understand that this actually may be extraordinarily embarrassing for you, but _this_… whatever _this _is… cannot happen. Ever."

Claire's expression was puzzled, a frown gracing her features. "I seriously have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

He was frustrated now. She had gone into his office, made him look a fool and then left without warning. "You _kissed _me in my study, and then you-"

"L," she gasped, eyes wide. "L, I've… I've barely seen you this morning. I saw you at breakfast, and then I hung out with Tom for a bit, then I came straight here."

"Are you calling me a liar?" he snapped.

"Yes!" she laughed disbelievingly.

This caught the attention of the others in the room. Elisabeth stood and went to join in their conversation. Claire was still shaking her head.

"Is there a problem?" Elisabeth asked politely, though with a sickeningly threatening edge to her tone.

"No, it's nothing," Claire sighed. She couldn't be bothered to deal with Elisabeth pandering to her boyfriend's delusions.

"Fine, fine, you think that nothing happened?" L challenged. "I have security footage in case anyone breaks into the study. I can pull up the surveillance and prove you that you did indeed kiss me."

"She did _what_?" Elisabeth almost shrieked.

Everyone else had frozen now, their eyes drawn to the scene that was unfolding before them. They were unsure who they should believe: both parties appeared so certain of their own case, as though they had nothing to lose.

"Go ahead!" Claire said, gesturing to Matt's laptop. "Get it up on the computer, you'll see I didn't do anything!"

Matt looked to L for instructions tentatively. He didn't desperately fancy taking the wrath of a young woman that could show him the worst moments in his life just by looking into her eyes. L, eyes stony, nodded, and so the redhead booted up his computer quickly.

Everything was horribly wrong. They couldn't both be right, and Claire's confidence was beginning to make him think that he _had _imagined the ordeal after all. In all honesty, he had developed a definite interest in her, though that interest was not quite something he could elaborate on. Although he was incapable of admitting this to anyone who knew Claire, he was uncertain of precisely the attraction he felt. He did not know whether it was platonic, romantic, sexual or merely morbid curiosity. He had a nasty gut feeling that watching this video would help to shed some light on the subject.

The Zapped began to take their places, each person managing to automatically arrange themselves in height order, as if by instinct. Matt's fingertips against the keyboard, typing in the numerical code to the surveillance system to find L's study among the rooms in the orphanage, seemed to take an eternity. Elisabeth's face was not difficult to read. Ice-cold defenses were already up. It was hard to tell, however, whether she wanted L's story to be true or not.

Claire's arms were folded. The others were all inching forward, eyes round as they prepared to accept one and condemn the other. Finally, the video for the time that L instructed came up, and the 'play' button was pressed.

The truth was in plain sight.

* * *

><p><em>For those of you who are unaware, 'genophobia' is a fear of sexual intercourse. Who do you believe, why do you believe them and what do you think could possibly happen now?<em>

_The next chapter will be up as soon as possible. The ending has pretty much been decided, so now it's only a case of getting it all typed up._

_Hoping everyone's well, and thanks to all of those wonderful, wonderful people who have been reviewing. You're like sunshine, cookies and lollipops, if you're into that kind of thing._

_C._


	14. Haptophobia

The images playing out before them should not have been happening. The footage showing Claire's legs wrapped around L's waist, their sighs and quiet moans – God, had they actually _moaned_? – should not have ever come into existence, particularly from the blonde's point of view. Her eyes were fixated, wide and disbelieving, on the screen. Her throat closed up, too thick to permit her to form coherent words.

"_I know you want to fuck me…"_

She staggered back, a hand clapped over her mouth in shock as she shook her head fiercely. Elisabeth had turned in a snap movement to face her, facial muscles so tense they could have been rock-hard to touch. In terms of height, the American woman had a good few inches on Claire, and where strength was concerned, she of course had the upper hand, due to her opponent's formerly comatose state.

It was difficult to interpret the lines of L's expression; so many unspoken thoughts polluted it, from triumph at being correct to confusion at Claire's current innocence. Why, when she had been so ardent to separate him from Elisabeth in the first place, would she quail from the confrontation that resulted from her actions? Furthermore, to protest against something that had been proven by surveillance footage… was that not redundant? How could she still claim she had nothing to do with it?

"Well," Elisabeth said coldly, "look who's the liar now."

"I…" she choked out. "That… there's no way that could be me… I don't remember it, any of it. I never-"

Ben was quick to back up his sister. "Yet obviously what you're saying is far from the truth," he barked. "I mean, all you need to do is look at that film! You were all over him like a rash!"

Claire continued to shake her head, completely helpless. She hid her eyes hastily, not wanting them to see that she was so hurt by their accusations. One thing she had always hated was being branded as something she was not, labeled because of something she had not done. In the few minutes of film that had played, every person in the room had managed to turn against her.

"What the fuck are you looking like that for?" Elisabeth demanded. "It's pathetic. You aren't going to get sympathy. We've all seen what you did, _Claire_. We know who you are now – the type that plays on kindness and then takes advantage of it."

"No…" Claire protested.

"No?" the technopath snapped. "Why are you bothering to lie? We _know_ the truth."

"You don't understand!" the blonde cried.

"No, you're the one who doesn't seem to get it," Ben said sharply. "You don't go around trying to steal other people's boyfriends, it's just not how things work."

As she endured the Reid siblings' latest attack, thoughts began to whirl thick and fast around Claire's skull. How on earth, if this was actually true, could she not recall any of the ordeal that had incurred their outrage? She frowned. The situation was not right. Everything about it was incredibly suspicious. In what circumstance could one be forced to do something that would bring on amnesia?

Her eyes flitted to Light sitting next to newest girlfriend Emilia, who had her arm around his waist. None of the others could fully comprehend, but Claire had extremely good reason not to trust him. She knew what he was capable of. She had seen it all play out in her mind. Still… it could happen here. The conditions were not correct. This time, it was not Light that was at fault.

She couldn't imagine that she had magically gained amnesia of her own accord halfway down a hallway, so there must have been another party to blame for her erratic behavior. She evidently had not been in her right mind at the time.

Hang on. Was it possible something _else_, a foreign entity, had in fact been in her mind at the time? Could it be that she had been… what, possessed? Controlled? But how could she have been, when none of the people she had spent all this time with had that kind of power, excepting Light, and she was sure it wasn't him – he looked as confused as the rest of them.

Fleetingly, her mind tenuously connected the story she had been told about Elisabeth's business inside Downing Street. The President had not really _been _the President, rather, the President's mind had not been in synch with his own being at all. Nothing had remained of the USA's elected leader. It was possible that it was a rogue Child doling out these cruelties, so how had Claire come into contact with them?

It would have to be someone she had physically come into contact with, surely. The transfer from one body to another would probably have been difficult to limit otherwise, and even more difficult to track for the one with the power. To willingly give a part of yourself to another's shell, to another person's physical being, would be dangerous and need boundaries.

Since the pleasant pacifist Drew was the only person who did not have a power, Claire briefly considered the fact he may be hiding it for his own gain. However, this still proved unlikely. He was much too nice a man, and Tom knew him far too well to be fooled by anything he could attempt to pull off psychologically. That would leave the last time she had touched a human being prior to seeing L that morning being at the courthouse.

She had to relive the moments that had sped by so quickly in great detail or else risk being unable to figure out the reality of the situation. Who had she touched, or who had touched her? She recounted the events chronologically.

Emilia's mother had snatched up her hand.

Light's father had patted her shoulder.

The lawyer, Mikami, had helped her up from the ground.

Tom shook her hand.

So which one was it? And how the hell was she supposed to determine the ones with and without power? Even more than that, she had to think of a way to explain it all to the Zapped without trying to seem desperate and defensive.

"I think you'd better leave this place and not come back," Elisabeth suggested icily, riling her.

This got Claire's back up. "Oh, will you just _fuck off_, Sparky?"

There was a collective intake of breath from all those present. Elisabeth froze, staring at the blonde, outraged. "_What _did you call me?"

"You heard me," she hissed. "I know that I didn't do anything wrong, and I am _not _taking this bullshit-"

"You still don't get it, do you? Your time here is up! You tried to sleep with my boyfriend, you were _rejected_ and now it's time to handle the consequences," Elisabeth said. "There's a reason they locked you away. You're obviously not supposed to be around normal people."

"Oh, you call yourself normal now, do you?" Claire smirked. "That's a new one. Originally it was you guys versus the world. Now you want to be a part of it just so you can leave me out in the cold?"

"This isn't about the world, this is about you hitting on my boyfriend."

"To be fair, he didn't fully reject any of the advances that weren't my fault, did he?" Claire reminded her.

In response, Elisabeth took an angry step forward, electricity zipping through her veins. She looked pretty ready to rip Claire's head off at any time, however the blonde held her hands out as a gesture for her to pause.

"Everything I was told about the incident in Downing Street…" She spoke quickly, every word still concisely said. "You described the President as not being himself, and that someone else was controlling him; what if, by some coincidence, I happened to have undergone the same experience? Think about it. The person inside the mind of the President told you that his scope for destruction was limited to you, but what if he didn't mean _you _directly, what if he meant the Zapped as a whole? You in the plural form, meaning us?"

"You can stop trying to bullshit your way out of this. You're not fooling anybody."

"What if I was being controlled then?"

"We've known from the start there was something wrong with you," Ben said coldly. "That's why you were in an asylum and the rest of us were out walking freely."

"Will you stop being so fucking ignorant?" Claire demanded.

Elisabeth shoved her, sending light pulses of electricity through her shoulder. "I will not be criticized or insulted by the whore at the party. Sluts don't get license to bitch about the innocent."

"I _told _you, I don't remember doing anything," Claire insisted.

"Elisabeth," Mello piped up, "I think she's telling the truth."

"She got you fooled, Mello? Shame, I thought you were smarter," Elisabeth sneered. There was a slight smirk on her face. "You know who you remind me of, Claire? What you remind me of? You remind me of this person who pissed us off, the one who showed her power through her eyes too. Kiyomi Takada tried to kill us all. Maybe you were in league with her, and that's why you survived-"

"Whoa, hang on a second there-" Mello interrupted.

"Mello, please," Lara mumbled, touching his shoulder. "We don't really know anything about Claire, and, I mean, I've known Elisabeth nearly all my life… I don't think she'd lie to us…"

"Elisabeth doesn't know _everything_," Mello protested.

"You," Elisabeth told Claire, "are just a wasted, lying whore that would take advantage of us all in order to succeed in doing what that bitch Takada failed to do – you'd have us all dead if you could!"

"I didn't do anything, you're not listening to me!" Claire seethed. "Why won't you listen? I was being manipulated by the same person who was controlling the President, can't you see-?"

"Don't fucking lie to me!"

"C," L said loudly over the chaos. Everything seemed to stop.

"I'm sorry, _what _did you call her?" Elisabeth hissed.

Claire stared at him, breathless with relief. "Thank you."

"C – _Claire – _please explain the situation to us. I know I was the one to accuse you, but we are not savages. We are willing to listen to your side of the story. Or at least some of us are," L said, frowning.

"Oh, and Elisabeth," Tom added, "if you interrupt I'm gonna kick your head in, you're doing my nut."

"I have no memory of the incident on that film. I only remember, as I've said before, seeing L at breakfast, then going to hang out with Tom, then coming straight here," Claire recounted. "That was my entire day up to this point."

"But you didn't come straight here," Tom told her. "I asked if you wanted to come to the common room after we hung about a little bit, and you said no, you had some stuff to do, so there's a time gap there you have no memory of."

"The mind control must have taken place at some point there, with possible physical contact, so if it passes from person to person, I probably got it transferred to me by you," Claire figured out. "And it was a little after I got into the common room that memories come back really clearly, the rest is just assumption of how I got there, you know, like you don't remember a journey in a dream, you just remember the event."

"But if you're right…" B murmured. "That means whoever controlled your mind is still here. Still in this room. And you came into physical contact with someone else and passed the mind control on."

Claire looked like she was about to be sick. "I handed out drinks." She looked around pointedly. "I came into contact with everyone here."

"So who is it?" L mumbled, looking around.

Everybody glanced at one another suspiciously, not trusting what they saw. Couples moved apart and did not attempt to comfort each other, anxious as they were about their partner not actually being their partner. No one moved.

"It's Tom," Elisabeth said hurriedly. "I bet you anything. He passed it on the first time."

"Well, it could be you, just putting blame on others!" Tom countered.

"Drew!" Ben suggested. "Nobody would've suspected Drew!"

"What if it's still Claire?" Emilia asked.

"It could be L, we know for certain that he's touched her, and he started the argument!" Light put in.

"Rose has been awfully quiet," Misa commented.

The panic had erupted into an explosion of accusations, none daring to trust any of the others. The shouting seemed senseless, heated arguments bouncing off the walls with full force.

Claire stepped out of the circle of quarreling and stopped, catching sight of something that made everyone freeze. "Melody," she said carefully, "why are you wearing a gas mask?"

"Because of the gas."

"What gas?" Matt asked.

"This gas."

The next thing they knew, they were choking, then were swathed in escapable blackness.

* * *

><p><em>'Haptophobia' is the fear of being touched, quite appropriate in this situation.<em>

_ARGH WHAT'S GOING ON?_

_C._


	15. Emetophobia

**WARNING: This chapter is one of the reasons this fic was rated M - contains strong gore and graphic horror, plus some unpleasant language for those of you who care about that sort of thing.**

* * *

><p>Misa's eyes flickered open as she wriggled, stretching out her muscles, only to realize that she could not move any further. The sight that greeted her was darkness, and only that. Her arms had been carefully laid out at her sides, and they too were incapable of moving. She tried hard to lift her hands. The pressure bearing down on them was far too much for her to take.<p>

She squirmed somewhat, a wave of panic washing over her skin and electrifying her blood. Her breathing came in short gasps that soon resembled sobs that wracked her entire frame. After what could have been minutes or even hours, she started to compose herself. She was not, after all, blind. It was just that there was no light where she was. She could feel everything and she had not been physically hurt.

Listening closely, there was more than she had first perceived. There was a strange rumbling, almost resembling a gurgling, and then… a humming, insistent and low. It all came from above her, of that she was certain.

She had to get her circulation flowing again, right down to her extremities. She furled and unfurled her toes and fingers, stinging as the blood rushed to the tips. That was not all. It was gritty. She could feel the small particles that felt an awful lot like dirt slipping in the places between her toes. Still, her head was not being crushed with dirt, nor her mouth and nose filled with soil.

She tried to turn her head before realizing that something had been placed over her face. A plastic edge curved around her neck. Did she have a bucket on her head?

Where the fuck was she?

**XXX**

Matt lurched forward, shock setting in. He was awake, but… upright. He was upright, his eyes wide as he took in his surroundings: a long hallway, like that of an old-fashioned hotel, however abandoned, dejected to the point of mould creeping up the walls. The building was diseased. He couldn't be sure of his exact location with the darkness that engulfed him and the lack of windows.

"Ouch!" he yelped as he attempted to take a step forward.

The pain originated from his wrists. With stinging flesh and the sensation of warm blood oozing down his arms, he didn't even dare take a look. After a moment of trying to ignore the pain, his consciousness began to fade away once more, blood draining from his face. Finally, he grit his teeth and forced himself to look at what was digging into his wrists.

Fish hooks. He had large fish hooks slicing into his arms to keep him from moving anywhere, the fish hooks attached sturdily to the walls. In his wrists, specifically, where important blood vessels were located. If he were to try going anywhere, he would, best-case scenario, bleed to death, all of his blood on the floor in four minutes. Worst-case scenario: he'd rip his own hands off, _then _bleed to death.

Of course, dying wasn't an obstacle. He had died before. But to die in such a way, feeling the life previously in your veins trickling away, soaking into the old carpet, was pure agony. He had been shot several times, his body riddled with bullets, but that had been quick and almost painless. To comprehend enduring this much potential physical hurt was enough to make anyone insane.

He didn't know if he had the strength to die slowly and on his own. He had to make a choice. After all, his healing rate was a hell of a lot faster than that of normal human beings, and so his torn wrists would heal over the fish hooks, the skin sealing the razor-sharp metal into his flesh. This would make it all the more painful should he decide to try to escape later.

His decision was logical, and after gulping down air, gathering as much strength as he could from his memories of the people who had also been knocked out in the room with him, he wrenched his hands forward, yelling unabashedly whilst his arms were almost completely ripped apart. All that was left of his arms were bloody, ragged stumps up to where his elbows had been.

Crying out, he staggered forward, sweat slicking over his skin. Exhausted already and weakened from the extreme blood loss, Matt dropped to his knees on his path toward the door at the end of the corridor and fell face-first in the carpet that reeked of his own metallic, salty blood.

**XXX**

B had woken up in many difficult situations, not least when he was in prison and forgotten that he'd done something to deserve a couple of nights in solitary. Now he found himself in a definitely foreign location, somewhere cold and empty, slumped against a whitewashed wall the temperature of metal left outside during a winter's night.

His entire frame aching, he pushed himself to his feet. Something in the back of his throat decided then that it wanted to make a reappearance. He managed to just about hold it back, however its presence was still reasonably pronounced as he breathed in that familiar smell of _dead _again. Of course he recognized it; he would have been an oblivious fool not to have done.

That foul, stale, rancid smell, the one that brought back so many vivid memories, all designed to get back at a man he now considered an ally. It suddenly became particularly evident where he had been taken. If he could breathe in that rotting scent once more, it meant the ghosts were not far away. He spun around, eyes searching for proof of another being.

He was in a tomb. A cold, dark, dank tomb with not even a specter to converse with. What the fuck was up with that? The least a ghost could do to be polite was hang out to chat to the guy unintentionally invading his burial space.

B remembered something of what had happened shortly before his being knocked out. Most of the Zapped, say for Mello and perhaps L, were absolutely convinced that the newbie Claire had been trying to break their bonds as a group. Elisabeth in particular had been really laying into her, like she was the spawn of the devil or something. The poor girl hadn't had a chance in hell, to be honest. They were an intimidating gathering of people without her having done anything to merit their outrage. He fleetingly recalled seeing Melody with some bizarre gas mask on before he couldn't see anything anymore.

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice intoned, "I can genuinely say I was not expecting to see you here."

He turned around. "A? What are you doing here?"

"I should really be saying the same to you," the ghost laughed, taking a seat on the stone coffin in the centre of the tomb. "I mean, I'm kind of expected to be here, this being my place and all. You didn't even knock."

"Don't look at me!" B snapped. "I didn't come here of my own free will!"

"Wow, the irony," A smirked. "They left you in _my _tomb to die?"

"I didn't kill you, you committed suicide," B protested.

"I know, but when I was alive, you were hardly encouraging for me to stay alive, were you?" the dead teenager remarked. B's answering expression was one of undeniable chagrin. "Ah, got you there. Oh, well. Not like I can care anymore. And I can't do much to get you out. I did warn you."

"Warn me-? Oh, you mean you told Rose something about trying to tell ghosts apart from real… I mean, _alive _people?" B rolled his eyes. "How the fuck was that useful to either of us in any shape or form?"

"It's not my fault you don't listen to your dead pal, B," A hissed. "It's not my fault you aren't looking out for Phantom."

"What?"

"I think you mean _who_."

"The phantom you've been talking about… isn't a ghost?" B realized. He slapped his forehead, angry with himself. "Phantom! It's a codename, like Rose's Spektre and Stratagem and the Mentalist… of course…" A wave of unease washing over him, his eyes flickered up to meet A's.

"Finally! I would've said you were a clever boy, but you're clearly not since it took you so damn long to even begin to imagine the possibilities…" A sneered, leaning up against his white crypt.

B's tone was cutting and intrusive. "So, tell me, A… who _is_ Phantom?"

**XXX**

The moment Tessa's eyes flickered open, she heard a keening cry. Immediately, defenses were up, and she knew something was horribly wrong. She brought to memory the dim recollections of Claire being verbally attacked on all sides, and then glimpsing Melody in a gas mask. She gasped, sitting upright and staring ahead.

In front of her, Rose was crumpled on the ground, one hand pressed desperately against her shoulder, which she now noticed was gushing blood. Still drunk from her gas-induced sleep, Tessa scrambled toward the older woman and pulled away her hand to examine it herself.

"I tried waking you earlier and it didn't work," Rose attempted to explain, teeth gritted as the fabric of her shirt was carefully peeled away from her bleeding, gaping wound. "I guess it's because you're younger than me, you're smaller and… ow!"

"How the fuck did you get shot?" Tessa asked, horrified.

"When I woke up, there were masked people standing by that door," the honey-blonde told her, pointing with her good arm toward the door behind Tessa. "They didn't say anything, they just shot me. I don't know how long it's been since then. Half an hour at most?"

"I'm sorry," Tessa insisted. "I'm surprised you're still conscious. I'll make a tourniquet for you, but it's going to hurt."

"I did try to make one, but it was really hard to do with only one good arm. Oh God, where the hell are we?" Rose choked out, obviously forcing back tears. She knew it would do no good to cry. "They might come back…"

Tying a strip of cloth from her shirt tightly around Rose's collarbone and under her arm, Tessa gave her bloody hand a reassuring squeeze. "It's going to be okay," she insisted. "Someone will find us. The others will get out of wherever they are and look for us."

"Tessa," Rose murmured, "I feel really sick."

"Didn't peg you for being squeamish," the dark-haired girl grimaced. Gingerly, she maneuvered herself to sit behind Rose so that she could promptly vomit in front of her and not on her. "We've got to get you some water. They can't just let us die here, can they, or they would have killed us before?"

Of course, this was just a stab in the dark. There was no way of knowing certainly what they had been locked away for. On the other hand, Tessa could deduce why they had been given this particular situation to handle. Physically, Rose was no stronger than the average human being, and Tessa could always jump back in time to fix things, but that would mean leaving Rose on her own, and she could die by that time, alone.

No… Tessa couldn't leave Rose on her own. With the odds stacked against her, it would be far too risky.

"They're going to come and get us," Tessa repeated, more to convince herself than Rose. "They're going to come and get us."

"Oh, shit…" Rose mumbled. She leant forward and threw up again, this time more violently. She wiped her mouth. "Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, Tessa."

"Don't be," she replied encouragingly. "If you need to get it out, by all means, get it out."

"I'm not squeamish," she muttered.

Tessa tilted her head to one side, puzzled. "What?"

"I said I'm not squeamish," Rose answered. "I attacked my father with a heavy blunt instrument to the back of the head and you think I'm squeamish…?" She chuckled without humor. "I'm surprised, I thought you were smarter than that."

"I fixed up your shoulder, didn't I?" Tessa defended herself. Then it hit her. "Hang on. You said you're not squeamish."

"Am I an idiot, or did we not just clarify that one?" Rose sighed, resting her head up against the wall and closing her eyes as Tessa slipped out from behind her to sit beside her.

"Well, then, if you're not freaked out by blood and gore, why did you throw up?" Tessa asked severely.

"Being shot has to do something to my health," Rose replied.

"Rose…" Tessa's head was reeling. She frowned, practically gawking at her friend. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're the only one with powers B can touch without choking them, right?"

"Right… Tessa, where this is leading-?"

"So you two must have done more than just… you know… _touched_?"

The implication in Tessa's words began to finally sink in, shock numbing her entire body. Rose didn't think it was possible at that moment that she could pale any further, however evidently she was wrong. Silently, she opened her mouth and closed it, repeating the action until words eventually tumbled out, cracked and almost in a whisper.

"Oh my God."

* * *

><p><em>Sorry, guys, had to warn those of you who don't like reading the gory stuff. The revelations in this chapter are important, and hopefully shall point in the right direction as to the storyline, if any of you have been confused up till now.<em>

_So, question time. In a review, answer me these questions: who is Phantom, and where is each Zapped member in terms of location (not necessarily geographical, just the type of building or situation)?_

_Those who get at least some of the answers right will be mentioned in the next author's note._

_Thanks, and please leave a review._

_C._

_P.S. 'Emetophobia' is the fear of vomiting._


	16. Aichmophobia

Melody Rockwell had never been a person easily scared. She was everything contrary to that, to the point where she would actually go looking for trouble. However, the moment she opened her eyes, having no memory of the situation that had taken place in the Zapped common room, an unfamiliar emotion she could undoubtedly name _fear _shot through her. The last thing that sprung to mind was Claire handing her a cup of coffee.

She was in a dark room, a room full of crates and cardboard boxes. Warily, she inhaled dust into her lungs. She stood up carefully, still a bit wobbly from what she assumed was some kind of knockout drug. Her legs still weren't fully her own yet, and so she hobbled forward, head whipping back and forth in an attempt to determine her surroundings.

She heard another person shuffling around behind the boxes and shoved them away suddenly, preparing to rush forward and beat the shit out of them. Instead, she had Drew leaning back against the far wall, hands out to prevent her coming any closer.

"Drew!" she gasped. "Where are we? Oh my God, you look terrible, let me come over and help you-"

"_No_!" he cried, pushing himself against the wall.

The rejection stung her deep, and her eyes became round and wide. His stubborn refusal to let her any closer stopped her more effortlessly than any physical barrier ever could. She couldn't understand. She was frightened, too. Why would he not let her any nearer, or at least tell her what was going on?

"There was gas," he stammered, "and you don't… you obviously don't remember it… you were possessed. Claire was possessed. I can't let you any closer, I'm sorry, Mel."

"What?" she choked out. "Why not? Drew, you can't think that I was behind _this_" – she gestured theatrically with her arms to the boxes that trapped them – "could you? I don't know where we are or what's going on! Can you please help-?"

He swallowed. His hands went to his jacket, and with some trepidation, he unfastened each one of the buttons. What was underneath made Melody's breath catch in her throat.

A bomb. He had had an explosive strapped onto his body, under his coat, and he couldn't get it off. She made to take a step toward him, hurrying to find a way to tear it from his body, yet he extended his palms again in resistance. She halted in her tracks as, with one hand, he gestured to the space between them.

"Motion sensors," he explained. He pointed to a place obscured by towers of storage, exactly halfway between each of the areas they had woken up, one of the other walls. "The door's over there. Directly by the sensor."

"So if I set off the motion sensor, then…?"

"Boom." His voice broke on the word. "Melody… I'm sorry, but there's no way out."

"There has to be!" she yelled. Anger flooded her body, and she leapt into action, shoving boxes around the place desperately whilst she sought another exit. She continued to thrash and throw things until she dropped, defeated, to her knees. Her teeth clenched. "There has to be… has to be… be a way out…"

"There isn't," he told her sadly. "I've tried."

Her gaze fell on the timer that had been attached to the explosive. One hundred and twenty hours and two minutes: that was all they had left. Five days and two minutes. Drew was quiet, his face pale and drawn. It was with a weary, hurt indication of defeat that he slumped back against the wall and sat with his legs out.

She was only twelve feet away. If they wanted to, they could shuffle forward and touch each other's hands, if that. Silently, Melody sat back against a box, bringing her knees close to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Wordlessly, they watched each other, unable to cross that invisible line.

They were both too tired to cry.

**XXX**

Light wasn't sure what he expected when he opened his eyes, but it certainly wasn't this. Around his wrist he had a silver bracelet, however when he pulled it he felt as though he were pulling another weight. Across the room from him L crouched, glaring. The realization of it smacked him around the face. Fuck. He was handcuffed to the man.

"Good. You're conscious. As you may have realized, we have been forced into a somewhat compromising situation-" L began.

"_Somewhat _compromising?" Light choked out. "You are kidding, right? I have a bloody girlfriend, L, what the hell do you reckon she'd think if she saw this?" He massaged his temples with his free hand exasperatedly. "Okay, okay… let's start off properly. Where are we?"

"An attic, by the looks of things. It's dusk at the moment, and I couldn't go to the window over there whilst you were unconscious. That would involve dragging you, and I don't know if you are aware of this, but you are actually quite heavy."

"Why the hell didn't you just do the normal person thing and wake me up?"

"Oh, trust me," L said wryly, "I tried."

"You _what_?" Light groaned. His hand went to his forehead as his skull proceeded to sting. "My brain feels like it's about to explode. Did you kick me in the face or something…?"

L leapt to his feet, avoiding the curious brunette's eyes. "So! About this attic!" he announced. "We must be able to discern its location… surely there are people downstairs who will hear us if we make a lot of noise? Then we could be given the required assistance to remove ourselves from each other and leave this odd predicament…"

"Yeah, unless the people downstairs are the ones who put us in this 'odd predicament'," Light pointed out, mimicking L's dead tone. "We just need to figure out where we are."

"Come on, then," L snapped, yanking on the chain and pulling Light to his feet so that they could stumble over to the window.

The view that met them was reasonably simple, of an ordinary road with ordinary traffic and a parking lot off to the side. The entire scene was cloaked in the gray light of very early morning. Technically, they could be anywhere. To the untrained eye, they had nothing to go on at all. However, they were not exactly of average intelligence. They were the wrong two to lock up together if they had to be kept in the dark.

"That's a sign!" Light said, pointing.

"I did not know you were a believer of fate."

"No, listen to me!" Light hissed. He was already irritated. "Look, there, that's a sign behind those trees. I mean, from the front, near the parking lot, it would look like the trees were behind the sign, but we're seeing it the other way."

"So we know it's a public building, and… hang on." L peered further over the high window ledge and his eyes narrowed. For a few minutes, he remained silent in thought. Light knew better than to interrupt his processes, and so waited for him to finish. His dark eyes widened in realization. "I know where we are."

"So…?"

"It wasn't long ago that I was driven up this very road, and I stopped in the parking lot," L explained, gesturing to the route he took. "When I got out of the car, I saw that very sign. We were right. It's a public building."

"So where are we, then? Quit the suspense and tell me."

"It's the St. Augustine Centre for the Psychologically Unstable."

"The _what_?" Light spluttered. "Why the hell are we here? What is the possible significance of this place, and why us if any of the Zapped?"

"Stop being so narrow-minded…" L muttered. "Claire was brought here not long ago to keep her quiet. Perhaps we were brought here for the same reason. Actually, there's a forty percent chance that that is exactly why we are here."

"The other being-?"

"In a house full of patients screaming, no one will notice a couple more."

Light looked like he might throw up. Gritting his teeth, he beat a nearby trapdoor. "Jesus Christ, let us out!"

"It's no use, the whole building's shouting that," L said impatiently.

**XXX**

The cool air bristling through Tom's brown hair send shivers down his spine. In fact, it was this that first woke him up. Still drugged up, he pushed himself to his feet, coming to the sharp, slap-like realization that he was out in open air, and he was on chilled gray cement. His legs were still like jelly as he made his way toward an edge and halted suddenly.

"Oh, _fuck_," he grumbled.

A roof. Some total bastard had dumped him on an office block roof, knowing that he couldn't fly down. He swore several times, cursing as many different deities as he could recall, from God to Wicca to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He had never felt so useless. What was the point of having wings if you couldn't really use them? He cringed at the thought of whatever the others were going through.

Running a hand down his face, he dropped to his knees. It was as though someone knew his weakest point and was exploiting it.

God only knew what they were doing to Drew. He felt terrible. The guy had stuck by him through thick and thin, despite his managing to be a total asshole the majority of the time. Tom was the king of the guys that women complained about being jerks, the ones that they always found themselves drawn to regardless of there being kind and considerate guys like Drew out there. And somehow, with Drew, it didn't matter that Tom was such a prick. Drew was his brother… and he'd been the one to drag him into this entire mess.

Moping over, Tom glared out at the rooftop he now had to call home. There was no way he was going to be depressed. He was not going to be afraid like a small child. He was too angry for that. What kind of bastards would try to destroy a good man like Drew because of some silly little abilities?

He thought through what Claire had said before they had been knocked out by the pungent gas. He knew the choices, and since he wasn't one of them, the scope was narrowed considerably.

Emilia's mother was not a bad shout. That would explain her unending loathing for children of the storm. If she was frightened of the stigma that being a child of the storm induced, then she would do everything she could do to ensure that people ruled her out as that. Her persecution would be more than simply following orders.

And now the PTD had been dismantled, she would need more to take out the Zapped. Clarissa Deaver knew people who were capable of removing others from her life. This would be revenge: revenge for getting her imprisoned, revenge for ruining her career, revenge for taking her daughter away from her and destroying her family…

Then there was Soichiro Yagami, Light's father. Now, there was little that could be said about him. He didn't seem a likely suspect, except he had come into contact with Claire. This meant Tom couldn't help but wonder if the entire 'kind father' thing was a cleverly plotted act.

What about Mikami? No, that would be silly. The man only really knew Tom, and strongly disliked him. Besides, he had reason to be at the courthouse in the first place; he worked there. There was nothing out of the ordinary by him being present, and he couldn't exactly get help as a man supposedly upholding the law so that he could knock the Zapped unconscious and dump him on top of a building, could he?

He peered over the edge of the rooftop once more, biting his lip.

"You _fucker_," he growled to the empty air and his unknown foe. "You total _fucker_."

**XXX**

Eventually, Matt became conscious again. He didn't ache anymore, and although he was shaky, everything about him was well and truly alive. He wiggled his fingers to get his circulation going, then stopped.

Fingers.

He had had his arms ripped off – how the fuck did he have fingers? He got up slowly, gawking at his unblemished white hands, unhurt and clean. The dark blood caking his upper arms and shoulders was like a tan line. At the point his flesh and bone had parted previously, the blood stopped.

Needless to say, he felt more than nauseous when he turned slightly to see one of his shredded, bloody arms still hanging from a fish hook. The other had dropped free onto the garnet carpet, pale gaming fingers outstretched as they reached for something uncertain. The horror of it struck him with full force, threatening to knock him over.

_He had grown new arms_.

Still, he had nothing in his path now. He stepped forward to make his way to the door at the end of the corridor until he heard an ominous humming.

The attic trapdoor swung open above him and a long blade dropped onto his head, slicing through his skull and wedging into his shoulders.

"Shit…" he slurred. "Not again…"

* * *

><p><em>Apologies for the break, hopefully this chapter makes up for it. Although dark, this one was not quite so dark, and provided a little Light and L humor, I think (apart from Melody and Drew - aw, that's so sad!) The story is moving along quite nicely now, and I would like to hear from you.<em>

_This chapter's question: who do you think is Phantom, and why?_

_It's about to get very interesting, and probably by next chapter, you'll have the answer, so stay tuned._

_Thanks!_

_C._

_P.S. "Aichmophobia" is the fear of sharp or pointed objects, rather apt in Matt's case. Unlucky bastard._


	17. Astraphobia

Emilia had never had a headache that seared her frontal cortex in such a manner as this did, like the worst hangover in the world multiplied by ten. She pushed herself up from the floor to study her situation. It was an oddly familiar room, dark and musty, however almost _homey. _Rubbing her eyes, she visualized the various scenarios: Elisabeth sat at the desk in the corner, Emilia rifling through newspaper articles, L watching the news, Lara being comforted by Mello…

"Oh my God…" she mumbled in sick realization.

She heard another person groaning and whipped around to face them in shock, only to see that it was Ben. Blood had congealed under his nose from where someone had punched him, and he looked pale. Deathly pale. She rushed over to him, panic beginning to build in her throat. Although his eyes were bleary, they soon focused on her.

"Em-Emilia…?" he gabbled.

"Yeah, it's me," she told him. "You okay?"

"My neck hurts," he moaned.

"We're in the safe house," she explained, glancing about her. "The safe house we stayed in for those months in hiding, we're here. Somebody clearly knew about this place. They weren't supposed to… nobody was… how do you think we can get out of here? D'you think the doors are locked?"

"Uh-huh," he murmured. A moment later, he was gritting his teeth and cursing under his breath, complaining of a dull ache at the back of his neck.

Emilia frowned at this remark. Ben, unlike his older sister, was not usually one to complain. Biting her lip in anxiety, she held his arms so that he could shuffle forward carefully. His head dropped; clearly, the knockout gas had been much more potent for him than it had for her. That or he was weakened from the coil of wire that had been inserted into the back of his neck. She could do nothing but gape in helpless horror. She could see the contours of the wire just below his skin.

"What is it?" he asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. "What's wrong? Emilia? Emilia, tell me!"

"Okay," she mumbled. "Ben, you mustn't panic. You have to stay calm, but what I'm going to tell you is really… _really _not good."

"What _is it_?" he demanded, voice jumping up an octave.

"Ben, there's a wire in your neck."

"A _what_-?" he yelped, hand instinctively moving to tug it away.

"No!" she snapped. She slapped his hand away. "You shouldn't touch it! You don't have a clue what it is! Leave it alone!"

"I just hate knowing it's _there_," he hissed, "right where I can't see it."

"Well, you can't just yank it out," she insisted. "We can try getting out of here first, and then we'll see about getting that out of you."

After a few minutes' silence, in which both Zapped members resigned themselves to serious contemplation, Ben finally spoke again. He looked even more drawn now than he had before, as though an unspeakable thought had entered his mind.

"You talked about getting out," he said, "escaping. Your power is speed, isn't it?"

"Yes," she agreed. "It is."

"So all that does is make you fast," he reminded her. "It doesn't make you stronger, or more invincible, or immune to pain. It just makes you quick. It does nothing against locked doors or barred windows. And I can't go anywhere in this state, not with this wire embedded in my spinal cord."

"Your point being?"

"We actually have no chance of getting out," he replied. "This isn't a case of winning the game, of escaping by finding a loophole. This plan wasn't designed to give us a fighting chance. This was a plan to take us out, to imprison us, and whoever came up with it thought it through pretty thoroughly."

**XXX**

It had been approximately half an hour since Matt had awoken after dying of blood loss removing the blade from his shoulders and skull. It had taken him a long time to bring himself to remove the metal, since it had become so firmly _part_ of his body that he had been forced to use the fish hooks to cut open his shoulder and skull like a makeshift scalpel in order to loosen the long, flat blade.

It was at this point he heard a shuffling, a low grunt, and listened closely to the sound. He was reasonably certain he could take anything that was thrown at him now, considering he'd grown new arms and that hadn't been a problem for him, but Matt still felt a sense of unease. Cautiously, he padded towards the door from which the noise emitted, and pressed his ear to it.

Again came the shuffling, and instead of a low grunt, this time came a growl of frustration. Of course… he recognized that sound. Without hesitation, he threw open the door –

He barely had time to register Mello's horrified expression, gagged and bound, before his friend's finger twitched on the trigger of the shotgun he was tied to, and he was blown back into the corridor.

**XXX**

All that met Claire was she opened her eyes was blackness. Her skull felt tight, and, with some relief, she noted that she had been blindfolded, and not blinded. The slightest movement, lifting her hands, felt like a monumental feat, as the cords binding her wrists to weights below her were cutting into her skin. Darkness did not frighten her. Before, she had been shrouded in darkness, and it had almost become a comfort. She relied instead on her other senses.

When she breathed in, she inhaled dust and damp wood. The place she was being kept reeked of neglect, of memories that yearned to be forgotten. It reminded her of she had not dared to venture for fear of being swathed in cobwebs or catching her foot in the rotting cork floor.

She arched her back somewhat, processing the sensation of what she had been placed on. Clenching her hands meant she could hold onto something just around the tips of her fingers – so, chair then. Her elbow brushed soft wicker behind her back – old chair. Ornate. Old-fashioned. Outdated. It seemed the sort of thing someone would inherit from their grandmother and keep in the – ah, yes. The basement. That would explain the smell.

The sound of a door creaking open snapped her from her reverie, and instinctively, her head followed the noise, which was above her. The basement hypothesis seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. The door closed, and locked.

Gentle footsteps tapped down the stairs. Stone stairs by the sounds of things, and light feet, so either a woman or a careful man. The person made their way toward Claire's chair, moving with conviction as neither of their feet dragged across the floor. By the thoroughness with which they had effectively taken out the Zapped in their own hiding place and the fact they were not worried about what they were doing, or the idea of being caught, they must have been planning this for a decent amount of time.

Now to hear their voice… however they said nothing. Instead, they remained for a few minutes, just watching. Observing Claire's reaction for anything interesting.

The tension was too much. She opened her mouth to say something when her captor interrupted her.

"You're awake."

_I know that voice!_

"You were asleep a long time. I thought your constitution, out of the others, would be more… equipped… for taking a chemical beating. I mean… you survived a coma, didn't you? I must admit I found you kind of… disappointing."

It clicked. "Teru Mikami," she croaked.

He clapped his hands together. "Oh, and there she is! Forget the disappointment; that was textbook! What else can you do? In fact, don't answer that, I'm looking forward to finding out myself…"

"I already know who you are and what you look like. Why don't you remove the blindfold?"

"Because _that_, my dear, would be cheating. I don't like to give others the upper hand. It makes for too much risk."

"I see. You're a coward. It's fine until it gets too personal, and then you panic. It's all right when you have people doing things for you-" she started.

"In a way, that makes my power absolutely perfect for me," he interjected. "Just like your power is perfect for you: the girl who wanted to know everything, and ended up knowing all of the _wrong _things."

"You're Phantom, aren't you?" she said firmly. "You bring down two governments, destroy a national landmark, imprison and traumatize over ten of the most powerful people on the planet, all single-handedly, and for what? It's not just to prove you're clever. You have your job for that. You're a lawyer. Theatricality is a prerequisite."

"Theatricality is a gift."

"But _why_? Why trap the Zapped? What's the point of it all?"

"I like playing games with you, Claire – do you mind if I call you Claire? – because you all make it so easy, and watching you dance to my tune is one of the most rewarding things a lawyer could ask for." She felt his palm touch her face. "It is a shame that I didn't get to look into those eyes of yours, actually. I hear they're quite spectacular. You've lived a thousand lives and they all show through your eyes, every single one of them."

"Don't touch me."

"I've seen some of those lives, Claire. Don't pretend you're any better than me. You revel in the theatricality and the deception. The games – they're your kick just like they are mine." He chuckled. "You're a liar, to all those who you try to befriend and to those who you already have befriended-"

"Go to hell-"

"In each life you've been different, but in each one there have been remarkable similarities. In each one you've lied, and you've cheated, and you've fooled everyone into thinking you're an angel." Suddenly, his voice was deep, threatening and almost a shout. "Where's the angel now? And where the others who believe it?"

It was at this point she would have given anything to have him get his wish, to have him look into her eyes. He would stare into them and see each death, each tear, each harsh word that she had ever witnessed. Only then would he ever understand the magnitude of what he was asking for.

"We're well suited, you and me," he told her wryly. "I think that if you'd let yourself, we'd make an amazing team. Unstoppable."

She bowed her head before he left the room, making his way back up those stone steps.

**XXX**

Elisabeth's eyelids only cracked open when the red lights in front of her face began to flash. It was an abrupt, rude awakening that undoubtedly pissed her off, and made her send off a crackle of electricity in response. Around her sat small gray machines inspired by bad science fiction flicks, glittering with fairy light imitations.

The shackles around her wrists were tight, immoveable things. They weren't silver, though. In fact, she believed them to be made of copper, an odd choice of material were it not for one property the transition metal possessed: it was an excellent conductor of electricity.

She wondered if she could burn away the shackles should she send enough charge through it. If it overheated and melted, she would be capable of escaping. Her anger was effortlessly flowing through her veins to throb into the copper shackles. She was like a one-woman lightning bolt, pumping the metal with enough electricity to light up London for a night. She knew if she kept this up, she would be able to break free of the metal. It was a good conductor of electricity, but it couldn't be enough to hold her there.

What she did not think through in her quest for freedom was that copper had an exceptionally high melting point. In addition, she did not care to think _why _a conductor would be needed instead of an insulator. The machines opposite her buzzed and hummed harmlessly, whilst outside in the city of Winchester, dark clouds had begun to form in the sky.

Very familiar clouds.

* * *

><p><em>I know, I know, I'm the shittiest updater ever, but I've had exams flooding in, and they're pretty important, so they take priority. They added to my severe and extremely irritating writer's block.<em>

_I appreciate all of those of you who've held on with baited breath to see what's happened next and hope that you'll continue to be patient and enjoy "Red Alert". _

_"Astraphobia" is the fear of thunder and lightning._

_Thanks!_

_C._


	18. Spectrophobia

Tom watched as the lights of the skyscraper below him dimmed and the sun began to rise. He was bloody freezing up on the roof, and he hadn't eaten anything or drank anything since being knocked unconscious with gas. He found his thoughts wandering back to the rest of the Zapped. What were they doing at this very moment – fighting for their lives in the same manner he was, perhaps? He didn't let himself think about Drew and what could have happened to him. Regardless, the anger crept in.

He sank his teeth into his fist to relieve some of his nerves as his resolution came to the fore. He felt undeniably sick, the idea that was to coming to fruition churning his stomach. He had thought about it. Of course he had. He had thought about the chance that could be taken, which had unpleasant odds for him – he was more likely to die painfully than survive.

But he was good under pressure, and this was what clinched it for him. Even taking on his first high-profile case, and going up in court defending a man with almost no chance of freedom, he had flourished. The trial had gone down in history as one of the most surprising, and he had gotten all charges dropped with ease. A man such as Tom was exactly the type that worked well in a crisis.

It was with this mindset he approached the edge of the roof and climbed onto the ledge. Traffic blared below him, the cold wind whipping at his clothes. It was the strangest sensation, almost like vertigo, that overcame him, like having a rug yanked from beneath your feet and finding that you tumbled down an unending rabbit hole.

His wings tore through his skin as they unfurled. It reminded him of one time he had been trying to get to a recipe book on the top shelf of the unit in their kitchen as a small boy. Being the taller of him and Drew, he had been the one to seek it out relentlessly. He had clambered up onto the top of one of the slippery kitchen counters and had been about to reach the book's spine when he lost his balance and he fell backwards onto the cold tiled floor, cutting his back on a knife he'd knocked on the way down. It ripped right through him.

However, when the tearing and gore had finished, he felt sweet relief. After so long without spreading his wings, he was finally relaxing and stretching. He compared it mentally to stretching when you woke up. Yes, that was it. He was waking up.

_Whoosh_ and he was dropping through the air toward the ground below. Pressure in his ears built to an excruciating level, so much so that he could hear nothing but ringing in his ears. He found that his mouth opened in a yell as he descended, swift and accelerating like a bullet.

"Whoa, whoa!" he shouted, trying hard to stop as he tipped his body until it was vertical. He was no longer chilled. Nope. He was burning from the friction, flapping his wings like a madman to slow himself down.

A woman who saw his approach screamed in horror and bolted, sending others running from his flight-path too. He recognized the woman as Rebecca from his offices. Wrenching himself in a direction away from the traffic, he slowed and ungracefully pelted into a large fountain outside the law office he had been on top of not three minutes ago.

His wings had instinctively curled around him to protect the rest of his body, yet the pain still seared through him. To the awe of onlookers, he pulled himself out of the water, seeing the damage he'd done to the statue inside the fountain before dragging his feet toward the pavement. Water dripped off of him as he walked, then got out of the fountain and met Rebecca's eyes.

"Problem?" he asked icily.

"N-no," she replied. "No, there's no problem."

"I didn't think so," he growled.

**XXX**

Mello hated that he had to watch his friend die – he had never killed him before, even knowing he was immortal. Tessa had done it plenty of times; she'd practically volunteered. Regardless of knowing Matt would awaken again shortly, it still made him feel bad. The redhead was caked in his own congealed blood, his clothes ripped from blades, bullets and various other methods of torture.

It was seconds later that Matt gasped and shuddered to life again. His green eyes sought Mello's blue, and although he was still shaky, he managed to scramble to his feet and head in Mello's direction to untie his friend and remove the gag around his mouth.

"I don't know how you do it," Matt muttered, unknotting the ropes around Mello's ankles, "the whole not-healing thing. I hurt for a few minutes and then it's over, but for you guys, it doesn't end. There." Mello stretched his toes and rotated his ankles until they clicked. "You okay, Mels?"

"I'm fine, you?"

He glanced down at himself. "I think I need a shower."

"That makes two of us," Mello said. He stood, wobbling a little, and gripped Matt's shoulder for support. He was weaker than usual, but definitely still stronger than the average man; that was evident by how he was almost breaking his friend's collarbone. "What happened to you?"

Together, they helped maneuver Mello into the corridor towards the door at the end. Matt shrugged half-heartedly, his arm underneath Mello's shoulders. "Died a few times. The corridor was pretty much booby-trapped to stop me going anywhere."

Mello glanced back once and his eyes widened. "Are those your _arms_?"

"Oh, those? Yeah."

"Is that part of the whole immortality thing? Someone cuts a bit off, you grow another one? You're like a worm!" he blurted out.

Despite himself, Matt found himself shuddering with laughter. "Of all the times to worry about whether I grow my body parts back!"

"It seemed… necessary… to check you're all present and functioning," Mello admitted, embarrassed, as they slipped through the door to a grey-lit stairwell. "I mean, if I let you lose _anything_, Tess would kill me."

"_You_?" Matt choked out. "I'd be terrified. Tess is scarier than any big baddie we've had to face up to."

"Takada was a pussycat in comparison."

"A cute little cuddly tabby cat."

"Like a Professor McGonagall kitten…"

The two boys, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, laughed out loud, staggering down the stairwell towards the exit.

**XXX**

Near typed frantically away at a computer, having been discovered less than a day earlier on the floor of the Zapped common room, unconscious and with his system full of a physically weakening nerve gas. Being smaller and more fragile than the rest of the Zapped, he had discovered that his ability to walk was somewhat impaired. Now he sat in a wheelchair provided by Watari, waiting for the feeling to return fully to his legs. He resembled a ventriloquist's dummy, so miniature on the lap of the chair.

Watari placed a cup of tea on the desk in front of him, then stood back to regard the teenage boy, whose focus was unrelenting.

"Why do you think you were left behind?" he asked.

"That is simple enough," he responded bluntly.

"Oh? Is it?"

"Clearly, our enemy knows us well enough that he understands I am no physical threat to him, unless he possesses the strength of a Pomeranian." If his facial expression had not given anything away, Watari could have mistaken Near's tone for one of amusement.

"But you can track him," Watari pointed out. "Why would you leave behind one of the most intelligent leaders of the group, especially one who has the skill and resources to find you?"

Near stared, unfeeling, at the computer monitors in front of him before swiveling around in his wheelchair to face his guardian. He fixed the older man with a look of ice. "There is something I have not yet divulged."

"Near, what are you-?"

"I already am aware of the assumed identity of our nemesis, however due to the uncertainty of current events I have recently had my talent for supposedly psychic foretelling rendered useless." He gestured to his unmoving legs. "And now I have been made physically redundant as well. That is why they left me. I am, to our main enemy, no threat."

Watari was speechless. The boy who had been identified as having the most potential and the most talent at his fingertips now was disabled (for no one knew how long) and his mental capabilities had been cut off. He appeared to be merely an echo of what he once was. It was only then that the slightest of smirks flickered over the boy's face.

"Just because I no longer can feel my legs, and my special gift has been blocked, does not mean that I am not a threat to the thugs who got rid of the others," he reminded him. He spun his wheelchair back to face the computer monitor and, unflinchingly, scanned the information that had appeared. "We're looking for someone who despises the idea of getting their hands dirty. A master puppeteer. So… we target mercenaries that will lead us to him."

"You think they'll talk?"

"If they're still alive, they may well do. Guns-for-hire are not particularly well renowned for unwavering loyalty." With a triumphant flourish, he finished typing further criteria into his search. "We're looking for recently released mercenaries, not seasoned, evasive veterans."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because recently released mercenaries are expendable," Near said, "and since they have been previously caught, they are useless to our enemy on a permanent basis. They will go, and can be disposed of."

"There's one thing you still haven't told me-"

"Yes, here!" Near pointed to the screen. "Chuy Salazar, convicted of thirteen counts of murder… how odd. He was released, but only for hospitalization. He was allegedly dying of emphysema."

"If a man's dying of emphysema, he's in no condition to be hauling over ten people out of a building undetected," Watari commented. "Are there any other cases like this?"

"Wait a moment… yes. Here's one. John Bane, infamous assassin. It's strange here, that a man standing at two meters tall and weighing two hundred and ninety pounds falls so easily and dangerously ill."

"You're right… but Near, who is it that we're up against, with access to mercenaries like Chuy Salazar and Bane?" Watari asked.

"A ghost."

**XXX**

"How's my little liar doing?" Mikami said too sweetly as he closed the basement door behind him. He descended the steps and approached Claire, though not daring to stand too close, even with her strapped to a chair.

"I'd like you to take my blindfold off," she replied.

"That's funny," he remarked, "because I was thinking that's the complete opposite of what I want to do at this time."

"I want to see you."

"No." The word was final and unyielding. Despite such a short time being spent in her company, already she could hear him turning around and heading back towards the exit.

"I've been thinking a lot about what you told me," she mumbled. "About how we'd make a…"

"Yes?"

"A… a team," she said. "I thought back to when you possessed us in the common room, and I remembered how they all treated me, shunning me like I was diseased because I saw things they didn't want me to, because they thought I was like Takada. But I'm not. I'm better than that. I'm far luckier than she was because I can see beyond my anger. Don't get me wrong, I'm still angry, but I'm objective. And you can help me… can't you?"

Teru Mikami was silent for some time, processing her words. "If you're lying to me, you know that I'll know."

"All you have to do is touch me and you can see inside my head," she admitted. "Why, with that riding on it, would I try to lie to you? I'm furious. I'm sick of being nobody."

The slip and slide of fabric as it was loosened from around Claire's eyes was a glorious sensation. No longer blind, she caught sight of Mikami, with his dark hair, dark eyes and sharp suit, and smiled. He dropped her blindfold and his hands moved to the cord around her wrists. His fingers skimmed her arms as he removed the bindings. His face inched scarily close to hers. By the time he spoke next, their lips were millimeters apart.

"I think I know what to call you."

"What's that, then?"

"Mine."

* * *

><p><em>God, I've been absent from this site for a mighty long while! But my GCSEs are done now, and the show that took up a hell of a lot of my time and made me behave in the most unlike-me way possible (as Tallulah from "Bugsy Malone") has also finished. I'll be off to Greece in a couple of weeks' time, but before that I have time to get some writing out - if anyone's still out there...<em>

_Hope you enjoyed it, as always. Spectrophobia is the fear of ghosts, if that's not clear enough._

_C._


	19. Algophobia

Rebecca put down a cup of hot chocolate in front of Tom, watching his face in the firelight as he leaned on the mantelpiece with one of her thick camping blankets wrapped around his shoulders and mangled back. Although he thanked her in a gruff voice, there was no light and no hope in his face, none at all. It was cold and unforgiving, yet red-hot and full of rage.

Despite having worked with murderers, thieves and rapists, some wrongly accused, she doubted she had ever felt quite as frightened of a single man. All she had ever heard of Tom McElroy was his sociable, friendly, funny, happy demeanor, and his flirtatious nature. She had listened to the stories her colleagues had mentioned of sex unlike any other, of his being the one that got away – from nearly every woman in the building. Never in a million years could she have foreseen that fire, that unnerving drive to kill.

"Please sit," she begged, "just take a load of your feet and rest. You've had a really hard time; you need to sleep on it."

"Drew wouldn't rest," was all he said.

Hastily, she retreated, not wanting to frustrate him further. However, as she reached the doorway and prepared to go make another cup of hot chocolate, she heard his voice again. She turned back and his eyes were fixed to the red floral armchair by the fireplace.

"You know, my dad had an armchair like that," he said blankly. "It was his dad's before him, and it was fucking ugly. I mean, seriously, disgusting, like the ugliest flowery chair you've ever seen, but he loved it. It smelled like tobacco and mint and… and home. And sometimes, me and Drew, when we were tiny, we'd go and sit in the chair and just breathe it in, the smell of home, 'cause our dad, he was home to us really."

"Sounds nice," she interrupted, only to have him cut in again.

"I broke one of the legs of the chair, you know. It was an accident. I was playing football in the living room even when Dad had warned me not to, and Mum was out at work. I just kicked it too hard and it snapped it clean off, looked like it was some sort of weird contemporary art piece, a chair with three legs. Drew was sitting there watching, shocked, with his book in his lap." He swallowed. "Dad of course came running in, 'what happened', all that shit, and I said the first thing that came to my head. You know what it was?"

She shook her head, dumbfounded.

"'Drew did it'," he muttered, as though horrified at himself. "I looked my dad, my home, straight in the face and I told him Drew had kicked the ball away from him and snapped the chair leg. And he took it. He looked really apologetic and said sorry and I was sickened with myself. Dad was surprised but he still told Drew off really quietly in the other room. We didn't say anything after that, except late that evening when my dad gave me this one look, a soft one, and he said, 'we'll fix that chair, Tom'. He knew it was me. He was probably disappointed in me."

"But… but parents always do that, they just know, don't they?" Rebecca interjected hurriedly, hating to see a man so confident languishing.

"They were disappointed in my girlfriend choices, my attitude, my suspension from law work," he pressed. "I'll be damned if I'm letting anyone be disappointed in me again. Drew's a good guy. One of the best. I'm not letting my brother get hurt or killed so I can be disappointed in myself for the rest of my fucking life."

He gulped down his hot chocolate quickly before looking at Rebecca full in the eyes, to her astonishment. The man was a never-ending surprise.

"That was hot," he remarked nearly silently, and placed the cup back on the table.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," he muttered.

"I'm sorry about your brother."

"You don't need to be," he hissed in response.

She swallowed her nerves. "What do you need, Tom?"

"Nothing, I don't need anything, Rebecca, go to bed," he insisted, turning his back on her.

Right. That was bloody enough self-pity. She grabbed him by the shoulder and made him face her. "Tom, tell me what you _need_."

Surprised, he stared down at her earnest, determined expression. It was the sort of face he'd seen on his brother when he'd told him about his power. A warmth in his chest, something like trust, stirred.

"You work in my building," he said.

"Yes."

"The same building as Teru Mikami."

"What do I have to do?"

**XXX**

Half-past eight. He said he'd be back at half-past eight. She promised to have food on the table ready for him. In return, she could leave the house with him the next day and go out for lunch. She'd demanded to be treated as an equal partner in his endeavors, but there had been the matter of distrust that still lay between them becoming a problem. Instead, they would take things slowly. As if they were _together_.

She sat down opposite him when he arrived, greeting him with not a glare and disdain but with a gentle, tentative smile. Her warmth in return for his trust was the deal. And he responded in kind, to start with.

The meal was already out in front of them, a sophisticated-looking concoction of spicy sesame pork, spring onions, rice and pak choi, which Mikami greeted with a nod of appreciation – or acknowledgement. The food was there. So was she. She was behaving the way he wanted, doing as she was told.

Claire had left the radio on from when she'd been cooking, and now, in the low light of the elegant, hardwood dining room, Marilyn Manson's cover of Eurhythmics resonated. Wordlessly, Mikami's eyes bored into her, and she had to jump up out of her seat to go switch it off. This left silence that somehow was louder than the track, instilling the air with an icy feel, like a nagging drop of chilling water dripping down Claire's back. She returned to the table and to another of Mikami's mute nods.

As they started to tuck into dinner, he made comment on her silence.

"You haven't asked me how my day went."

She took a sip of the glass of water. "How did your day go?"

"It was interesting," he murmured. "I was talking to a colleague of mine, a Mr. Hayward, an absolute blockhead really, when he informed me that I was needed to be spoken to by our employer."

"Yes?"

"I'm to be promoted as soon as my case against the Paranormal Threats Department has been resolved," he told her. "Moving up the payroll, so to speak."

"That's wonderful," she smiled. "God knows you deserve it."

"God knows nothing," he said with a sudden, alerting coldness.

The fork on the way up to her mouth halted. For what must only have been about five seconds, he fixed her with an unrelenting glower, and then he returned nonchalantly to his meal. It was so fleeting, but it was enough to make her heart jump into her throat. She hadn't been frightened of him, not before.

She was wiser now.

All that Mikami did was power play. The rest of their eating together was punctuated with this kind of conversation, from the customary trivialities to unexpected, sharp stabs of suspicion and cynicism. With each harsh comment, she inhaled jaggedly.

Eventually, he stood, having finished the plate before him. This was her cue to move forward to begin the process of cleaning up the table and collecting the dishes. She picked up her own, before heading over to where he was standing to take his as well, when he caught her face in his hand, holding it still. It took all of her conviction not to yank herself away and run. But this was pointless. Some of his people watched the house constantly. If she ran, they would catch her in seconds. It would be so pathetic an attempt, they would laugh.

When he kissed her on the cheek, it was not with affection that he did so, but with triumph. For a man such as this, it was just another form of domination. There was no doubt in Claire's mind that Mikami liked to see her uncomfortable.

He caressed her jawline with his thumb before dropping his hand.

His expression perplexed her even an hour later, after everything had been cleared and she was finally unwinding in the shower. This was the only time when he was in the house that she got to herself; otherwise, she was sitting with him, talking to him, being watched by him. As the water unknotted all the muscles in her back, she massaged the shampoo into her scalp. Her body relaxed. Her mind did not.

She heard the door open ever so slightly. The creak was barely audible, but she heard it.

He was outside. Listening to her.

Although no one entered the bathroom, she could practically feel his hands on her already, and bile rose in her throat. She scrubbed the shampoo out of her hair as if scraping away any trace of him from her brain, yet knew he would not be washed away so easily. For now, she was completely trapped. He had her just where he wanted her, and she had agreed to his every whim.

Unflinchingly, she turned the water's temperature up to scorching, and stepped underneath the flow of raging heat with the hope she would just burn.

**XXX**

Thunder rolled as Mello, bruised and scruffy, and Matt, caked in his own dried blood, made their way towards the Itchen. It was fortunate that no one was around to see them, or the police – and their former captor – may be informed of their location. Not far from Wammy's, they were constantly stopping every few seconds to check no one was following them. There was no guarantee of safety in a situation like this, and their respective hearts hammered beneath their ribcages. Not far to go now. Just a little longer. A little longer, and they would be fine.

"I don't like the sound of that storm," Matt muttered.

Mello gestured to the river rumbling beside them as they walked, and glanced toward the bridge. "The water's up. Almost to the embankment."

"Matsuda?" his friend murmured.

"What did you say?"

"Look! Under the bridge! It's Matsuda!" Matt exulted, and started to run. His feet caught themselves and he almost tripped over as the reality of the situation became clear.

A bedraggled and dazed-looking Matsuda was dragging a young girl along with him, equally as disheveled and beaten. As he made to look to the angry sky in desperation, he caught sight of Matt and Mello, his eyes alight with relief. His voice was lost, as though he called to an entity that neither of the boys could see.

"Help."

"Lara?" Mello said weakly. "Is that Lara?"

"Help her," Matsuda begged, unable to manage a volume higher than a cracked whisper.

The blonde boy scooped an unconscious Lara into his arms while the redhead helped Matsuda to his feet by the crook of his elbow and supported him by placing an arm under his shoulders. Matt spoke calmly, the voice of reason in an explosion of panic.

"What happened to her?" he asked. "Why is she knocked out?"

"When they used gas on us, it was more potent with her," Matsuda sighed. "She's smaller and weaker. I heard two men saying we weren't considered too much of a threat to whatever plan's going on, so when I woke up first, they hit me over the head. I don't remember much else."

"They must have done that to Lara as well," Matt deduced, "except they probably caught a really bad angle, done some serious damage."

"How long ago did you wake up?" Mello checked with Matsuda.

"A few hours. My leg's badly hurt, and my phone was taken from me." He moved a wobbly hand to his left leg, which they now realized was jutting out at an unnatural angle. "I couldn't call anyone, and it looks like most people have stayed inside because of this storm."

"We need to take you back to Wammy's," Mello said firmly.

Matt could understand the urgency, and followed suit with a broken Matsuda on his arm. All the way, the boy gifted with strength proved his weakness, murmuring to Lara unintelligibly and brushing her fringe back from her forehead with his free hand. By the time they reached Wammy's gates, Matt had never seen his friend so frantic and was particularly helpful in moving Lara to her bedroom where a private doctor (provided by Watari) could observe her.

When Mello stood by Lara's door and waited, Near placed a hand on his lower arm, aware of the pain he must be experiencing, but not quite grasping it.

Mello jolted out of his reverie and his mouth dropped open the slightest bit at Near's appearance.

"What happened to your legs?"

"It is my understanding that due to the gas that rendered us unconscious, my body has been more strongly affected than the rest of our associates. I am managing sufficiently; the wheelchair has been enough to move me, although I must admit, it is terribly tedious to _push_ oneself everywhere."

Mello swallowed. "Will you ever… y'know… walk…? Like, ever again?"

"This has been difficult to ascertain," Near confessed, "however, I am prepared mentally for this eventuality. It has been a possibility since my paralysis that my legs will not regain feeling." He paused. "Mello, you look so somber. It is not through any fault of yours that this has occurred, and I have accepted that the worst, my permanent immobility, is a possibility."

"I don't think it's my fault!" Mello protested loudly, biting his lip to hold back furious tears. "I just… I mean, what the fuck? You think it's okay that you'll never fucking walk again? It's not okay!"

"Mello, it is not certain I will not regain use of my legs. Just a possibility. Please calm down."

"No! I will not calm down!" he snapped. "This absolute _fuck_ has taken so much from so many of us! He's taken Matt's life time and time again! He's kidnapped our friends! He beat Matsuda nearly to _death_! He's almost fucking killed Lara, he's made me shoot my best friend and he's taken your fucking legs!" He growled in frustration. "I'm going to _kill him_!"

"That's not our right."

"Not yet," Mello seethed, "but I bet you that you won't be feeling the same way when we find out what this fucking bastard's done to the rest of them."

"Ah," Near said. "I suppose… that is even more of a possibility."

* * *

><p><em>For those of you who are unaware, "algophobia" is the fear of pain.<em>

_C._


	20. Cleithrophobia

Matt turned back to the files stacked in front of him, all the while aware that this was futile in aiding his search for the rest of the Zapped. His best friend's hot, impulsive brain was not useful either, tempered as it was by the grief caused by injuries done to Lara. She was not one for conflict, and in participating in their dangerous activity had been broken, therefore breaking Mello.

The redheaded boy, on the other hand, was spurred on by this emotional setback. There lie his answers: the cold statistics and geographical profiling provided by the chair-bound Near may have worked before, but things had changed and this was far too impersonal to be accurate. Their kidnapper was a tactician and strategist, true, but first and foremost sadistic. He measured power by pain and success by both mental and physical collapse. Their comrades would not be found without human thought, and Near's was too computer-like.

The other factors to opt into the equation were the knowledge of each individual's powers and personal history. Matt and Mello were both found in a hotel destroyed by Takada, a past nemesis. First and foremost, their enemy prepared contingency he expected no one to break free from. For a heated mind such as Mello's, raw and emotional, taunting and poking him with a mental stick would be just as effective torture as the physical.

And in this truth, Matt hit the nail on the head. It was not enough to break one's body. A body could heal or be freed into oblivion. What was needed for a sadist such as the one that they now faced was to break will. Without the will to survive, there would be no need for added security. The more emotional of their band would be undergoing psychological destruction, and it would have to be personal.

Mello was the obvious choice. Beyond that, those most prone to personal sensitivity, and with the weakest spots, was either B or Elisabeth. Elisabeth's weaknesses, however, had recently formed, and were open to change, being jealousy and attachment. This attack had been planned well in advance, and would not allow for her to be as easily manipulated with later developments.

B, on the other hand, had a number of buttons to press, his failure to exceed L being one of a long list. Matt knew much of this had been triggered by his childhood insecurity, taunted for the way that he looked and being a backup for Alternative, the boy he later helped drive to suicide – or so the story had always gone at Wammy's. Everyone had always told him that Alternative's was the first blood he ever really spilt, allowing the boy who tormented him as a child to deteriorate. If his own insecurities spawned from A, then A must have had doubts that B, eventually sociopathic, could play on and puppeteer. The orphans all agreed A was B's first victim.

The pieces of B's life fragmented and reformed in Matt's consciousness to form a jigsaw puzzle of truth.

Beyond Birthday, the little boy – red-eyed. Monster.

Alternative, the bully – another human monster.

Suicide.

Death.

Flowers on a grave a little boy spits on.

Flowers. Roses.

Rose.

Red rose, love. Love for the first time.

Beyond and Rose shared. B's power means they merge. Share in life.

Share in death.

"B can see the dead…" he muttered. Matt's hand stopped on a file and the others in the room looked up at him. He raised his voice at the realization so that Near would register what he was saying with clarity. "Near, B can _see the dead_!"

"A graveyard?" Near suggested.

"See, I'm number three, but this is why you need me, mate!" Matt exulted, hurriedly standing and grabbing his coat. "You're a logician, I don't bother with the facts, I deal with programming – people programming! This thing with B isn't just locking him away to stop him from interfering; this is his worst nightmare, and one of B's most hated feelings in the world is guilt!" Near frowned. "B's most hated part of life is childhood, his most hated person in childhood aside from L the first in line! This guy's a sadist, he must have been inside B's head at some point. Alternative is the key. And Alternative is buried…?"

"At the private cemetery Elysium Fields," Near finished for him, finally comprehending. The small white-haired boy wheeled himself towards the door and gestured to Watari to go to the car. "Watari, the key for Alternative's tomb."

"I have it," he insisted.

**XXX**

B drew a circle in the dust of the floor and looked up to the ghost opposite him.

"Your go."

Alternative pointed at the square above B's mark and B used his finger to draw a cross in the dust for him, since he could not do it himself. More than anything, the pair were horribly bored, and B, starving and shaken, had resigned himself to the fact he would die there. There was no point refuting it, so he had spent his time playing time-wasting games with A until he could die – tic tac toe, twenty questions, I spy…

What Matt had forgotten was that psychological torture, to B, was mental deprivation of stimuli.

"Ugh, if I could die again to rid myself of this tedium, believe me, I would," Alternative groaned.

"Look, you agreed, I'm not going to be bored and on my own until I die. Once I'm dead, you can fuck off and do what you want," B snapped. He jabbed his index finger determinedly to the dust in the ground. "We can play 'hangman' again if you like."

"No, no, no!" the ghost insisted firmly. "No way in hell are we playing that again. If I have to try to guess 'omphaloskepsis' again I'll lose what's left of my mind after you said that you could use 'time' in 'I spy'!"

"If you can't see time, then why on earth does everyone say 'have you seen the time'?"

"You are absolutely insufferable."

A rattling of chains responded.

"I think someone's trying to break into my bloody house," Alternative said haughtily, eyes darting towards the entrance to the tomb. "Tell you what, the manners of you alive people…"

"Beyond!" yelled a male voice. "B, it's me! Matt!"

"_Matt_?" B said, startled.

"Stand back, Matt, I have the key somewhere here," Watari's disembodied voice instructed.

"We've come to rescue you!" Matt called.

"Oh, no, _please_, by _all _means," Alternative grumbled, throwing his hands in the air. "I might as well have a slumber party – dress code: living flesh. Get lost, the lot of you!"

Metal clanking and a click signaled the arrival of hasty footsteps and soon the appearance of a familiar redhead, old man and… wheelchair-bound Near. B opened his mouth to ask, instead opting to tell the still-complaining Alternative to shut up for once.

"I know they don't have to listen to you, but _I do_, so put a bloody sock in it, will you?" he barked. He turned back to his peers and used Matt's shoulder to support himself standing as his knees were about to give way. "Thank God you bastards are here. I'll help you find the others as soon as someone gets me a cheeseburger and a fucking _coffee_."

"There's a drive-through on the way back to Wammy's," Watari said, always business. "I take it you have garnered some new information from A?"

"You could say that."

"Great, great, you found him, rescued him, whatever – get the _fuck _out of my domicile, you bloody _house-wreckers_!" Alternative shouted, although only one of his present company could hear him.

**XXX**

Driving back to her flat, Rebecca could feel her heartbeat in her brain. She knew she wouldn't feel at all comfortable until she was back in her home, cup of tea in hand and feet up in front of the television. Once Tom was out, like he'd promised he would be soon. All she had to do was give him what he'd asked for, and then he would leave her in peace and she would no longer have to be implicated in this business with the Zapped, this spy-esque behavior she wasn't used to, and wasn't sure she'd ever get used to.

She pulled into the parking space outside her house and sat motionless for a few minutes with her hands resting on the steering wheel. God, she was practically catatonic with nerves.

Rebecca had been absolutely certain that everyone's eyes had been on her as she swerved her way through the office, nodding to each passer-by and trying her best not to appear too conspicuous. When people greeted her by name, even those with offices near hers, she jumped out of her skin with fright and spoke too quickly, too loudly.

"Oh, hey, Carole! How's it going? How are the kids? I'm sure they're doing great. You know, you're looking really well, I hope your husband knows how lucky he is. Amazing couple, great guy… Just listen to me chatter, duh! Got stuff to do, dreadfully busy, speak to you later, yeah? Bye, sweetie!"

Too obvious. So clearly up to something, so out of character. People would remember that.

Getting into the office had been the easy part. Mikami left his door open; after all, he was only down the corridor getting himself a coffee from the machine. But this would be the only opportunity to infiltrate his office without him being in the office at the time. He was routine – he had scheduled his coffee breaks like his toilet breaks, and it was a longer period of time for her to retrieve what she needed.

Urgently, she had fumbled with the memory stick and removed the screensaver from the computer to look in 'My Documents'. The annoying thing was that she had no idea what she was looking for. This man was meticulous in his filing system, and nothing seemed out of place. Besides, Mikami had worked on numerous cases, all tidied into their individual folders under the names of the people he was prosecuting.

Saying that…

One name stood out from the rest: Chuy Salazar.

Rebecca remembered when Mikami joined the firm, and it was not without pomp and circumstance – he'd been handed a massive case for the firm before he had been there three weeks. Chuy Salazar was an extended branch of that case, but he had not been prosecuting him. That job had gone to one of the firm partners. So why would Chuy Salazar be added as a client or defendant in his files?

Finally, she noticed what was open behind the application, and her jaw dropped.

Panicking that Mikami would return, Rebecca hurriedly downloaded as much of his data as she could onto the memory stick and yanked it from the drive. She could hear someone speaking to Mikami down the corridor about something unimportant and decided to flee. She told her boss she was feeling sick and would work from home for the rest of the day. Without giving him time to disagree, she had almost run to the elevator and gone down to the car park.

Now, sat outside her house, she was still close to hyperventilating. She had never stolen anything before, and certainly not from anyone as allegedly evil and powerful as Tom had told her Mikami was.

She finally plucked up the courage to go inside and face him.

He was stood by her fireplace as if he had never moved an inch from where she'd left him in the morning. As soon as he heard the door open, he was facing her expectantly, eyes wide and hopeful. She threw him the memory stick that had been hidden in her coat pocket.

"I didn't know what to look for, so I downloaded as many as I could. One caught my eye; it was marked Chuy Salazar."

"Salazar?" Tom repeated with a frown. "Salazar wasn't his case."

"That's what I thought."

"Thank you for this, Rebecca. I mean it. I think you may have saved about twenty people by doing this." He tucked the memory stick into his pocket. "I'm going to go, but I know the risk you took doing this, so…"

The card he took out of his black trousers' pocket had a name familiar to Rebecca printed on it.

"Jean McElroy," Tom explained. "She's my mother. If you call her and say it was Drew who sent you, she will let you stay with her as a safe-house until this all blows over. Call her straightaway. The number on the back of the card is the temporary one you can reach me on if anything happens. I'll be over as soon as I can. Thank you for everything, Rebecca."

Rebecca nodded in agreement and took the card. Tom's other hand rested itself on top of hers in an expression of sincere gratitude. He said no more and left her in a state of disbelief. She realized how wrong the girls at the office had been about Tom McElroy's flippant attitude to everything. She went to the phone to call Jean McElroy and awkwardly told her that Drew had said to go their house for sanctuary. Despite having questions, Jean had not quibbled and admitted that if Drew had sent her, it would have to be serious, so she gave her their address.

She hung up.

Suddenly, she remembered the email she'd seen on Mikami's computer that she had not downloaded and had forgotten to mention to Tom. She picked up the phone to call him and stopped when her doorbell rang.

Puzzled, she answered it.

"Rebecca, isn't it?" Mikami said warmly.

She froze in the doorway.

He offered her some folders. "I heard you were sick, thought I would bring these folders of yours over so you could work more effectively at home. Oh, yes, I see they were right about you being sick, you look as if you've just seen a ghost."


	21. Amychophobia

**WARNING: this chapter is another reason that the fic was rated M. Highly graphic and with adult themes that some may find distressing. Also, the language used towards the end of the chapter is rather unsavory, but is most expressive.**

* * *

><p>If only they knew. Meaningless sheeple, wandering these aisles searching for the best deal on Hovis best-of-both bread and toilet roll, they had no idea. Blinkered by the petty trappings of their trivial lives, the members of the public that surrounded Claire in the supermarket could not see – or did not want to see – the shadow of a woman that passed by them. It was as if they all refused to take note of her gaunt face and pursed mouth, of her suspecting, darting eyes and her clothes that covered as much flesh as they could.<p>

No, they did not want to see, and that is why she loathed them.

Her pale hands skimmed the products on the shelves with an outstretched arm so that she always had the sticking plaster attached to her wrist in her eyeline. As if she could run! He would always know where she was, always keep a watchful eye on her movements. If she went to a pharmacy for drugs, he would know. If she went to a garden centre for power tools, he would know. If she went to a culinary store for knives, he would know.

What he didn't know about this store was what they offered.

"I'm sorry," she almost wept to the man behind the counter. There was no doubt she looked like she needed what she was asking for. "I don't have my prescription. I haven't been able to sleep in days, I need my medication. I'm starting to have micro-naps, I'm worried I'll walk out into traffic or – or – oh, God, I don't know…" He looked like he couldn't handle her hyperventilating. "I just need benzodiazepine or I'm going to… oh, my God, help me…"

"I can't give it to you if you don't have your prescription," the man protested hopelessly. "I'm really sorry, madam."

Eyes full of feigned desperate tears, she met his irises and thought of another universe where he gave the pills to her without question. She must have forged a prescription that time. He looked so confused that he may as well already have given her the drugs.

"I think I… remember… seeing you before," he murmured, half sure and half not. She nearly smiled at his suggestibility. "Yes, it can't have been that long ago, I remember it so vividly… you were wearing a blue hooded sweater, am I right?"

"Yes," she said meekly. "It had a white bit inside the hood…?"

"I remember! Goodness, I'm so sorry," he breathed. Shaking his head at his own 'forgetfulness', he turned to retrieve the Loprazolam from the bottom shelf of the locked cabinet. "Here you go. It's a free prescription because you're a student, isn't it? I remember."

"T-thank you," she mumbled, wiping away her faked tears and stuffing the tablets in her bag. "My insomnia's been so b-bad; I don't know what I'd do without these."

"Yeah, they knock you right out, don't they?" he agreed. "Well, have a good day, love, and get some rest – you look absolutely exhausted!"

And so she was. As she paid for the rest of her shopping at the checkout, she longed for a single bed where there was not enough room for someone else to join her, where she could drift away into oblivion on a wave of dreamless sleep. This afternoon, she would do as she was told. She would make him lunch. She was the obedient Harley Quinn to Mikami's Joker, following each instruction he issued with attentiveness and care, and cooking was no exception.

That's what it took to survive, after all. And this man had made her very desperate. It was evident from spending one night at Mikami's house that he was not a man to be easily manipulated or fooled with. In the past, she'd met men malleable as clay, able to turn their heads as she was with some small tricks she'd learned with careful observation. Mikami, on the other hand, did not give her hope of reprieve in the mental torture he supplied. Under the pressure of constant vigilance, she could almost feel her mind snapping.

At the stove, she stirred the soup Mikami had asked for and added her own special ingredients. A full, flavorsome dish like the chicken, paprika and chorizo soup she had prepared unwittingly provided her with the opportunity she eagerly sought. Five of the pills from the packet would be plenty. Any more and he would taste the difference; plus, she would have to eat some of the soup or else he would suspect that it had been heavily drugged.

The ciabatta breads were ready on the side for serving when he came through the door. His arms were around her quickly so as to exert as much control as he could manage on his victim. Whispering sweet nothings in her ear was not so much affection as a game he liked to play. His mood may switch at any second.

"Lunch?" she offered, and took the bowls out of the cupboard so as to serve the meal.

"It smells good."

"Tastes good as well, but I burnt my tongue making sure it was perfect," she sighed.

"Oh, shame." Fiercely, he caught her mouth with his own and held her head in place by gripping her hair at the back. Eventually, he let go and gestured for her to serve the food she'd made.

She did so. Everything in her begged her hands not to shake as she placed the pan next to the bowls and ladled the soup into them. Knowing her companion's proclivity for neatness, she wiped any spillages with a kitchen towel. He was watching her when she took the bowls to the table and moved the ciabattas onto a wooden plaque to place in the centre of the display. Even the flowers were carefully arranged, almost right-angled in their accuracy.

"What kind of flowers are those?" he asked lightly.

"Rhododendron," she responded. "They looked beautiful in the shop so I thought they would make a nice addition to the table."

"You always think of everything," he cooed, and she froze, sensing an edge to his voice.

For a few more minutes, he continued to eat, and she could tell that as he did so he was enjoying prolonging her agony. He could probably hear her heart hammering under her ribcage. As he reached across to pick up a ciabatta, he stopped and took note of the way she was looking at him. The next words that left his mouth were bitterly cold, as if devoid of humanity.

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

Her face was fixed into a tense stare. "What?"

"It's a simple enough question," he murmured. "Claire, do you think I'm stupid?"

"I don't understand."

"You thought I wouldn't realize, didn't you? You thought I wouldn't figure it out?" His voice rose in volume. "Well, I did!" He smashed his fist into the table before smoothing back his hair with a sigh. "Claire, Claire, Claire…"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she insisted.

"I think you do." Icily, he picked up his bag and pulled a plastic bag weighted down by its contents out. Her stomach dropped into the soles of her feet. "Miss Powell was very sorry to have carried out your instructions."

"Teru…?"

Retrieved from the plastic bag, Mikami lifted in one hand a woman's severed head, the dead, bloodied face wearing such an expression of terror that Claire could not fully register it. He threw the head across the table and it landed with a _thunk _near her bowl of soup. Its long brown hair twisted in the cutlery and caught in the rhododendron. It was difficult to ascertain where the blood began and the red flowers started.

"Who is that?" Claire whispered.

"You don't know Rebecca Powell?" Mikami said, puzzled. He shrugged. "Ah, well. I know it was her going through my files."

"Oh my God…"

"Come now," he said reassuringly. He walked slowly over to her and embraced her so he could feel her shivering. "Claire, darling. I don't know why you're so fussed. She's nothing to do with you. Just someone who got in the way. A silly little girl who does not know boundaries. No need for you to be frightened."

There was every need. His hand, drenched in sticky blood all the way up to his elbow, was encircling her and trailing up and down her spine. The dead girl, Rebecca's, eyes were glowering at her from the table. Suddenly, the hand that had been tracing her spine was gripping her hair, and he was growling into her ear.

"Get a good look, sweetheart. This is what you're going to live with. We will make a team. We will take the world. We will marry. And I will use you up until there is nothing left of you but bone and marred, marked, poisonous flesh stained by my abuses."

"Then just kill me."

"Why, you–" His eyes drooped and he appeared to lose control of his tongue. "You… you…"

Taking the opportunity to pull her hair out of his fingers, she pushed him down with all of the strength she possessed and ran into the kitchen with him crawling after her. She promptly vomited into the sink to rid her body of all the sleeping tablets and grabbed a vegetable knife from the kitchen drawer. She pulled off her belt and bit down on it. Mikami was still groggily crawling across the floor towards her and reaching for her. Through the haze of his vision, he could make out her digging the knife into her own arm and screaming into the belt. When his eyes closed, he felt something hit his face – a blood-soaked tracker.

With tears streaming down her cheeks from the pain and her arm gushing blood, she created a bandage and tourniquet out of one her shirts. At this point, she knew she was unable to be traced. She spent her time with consideration, picking the lock to Mikami's study with a wire coat hanger. All the files and documents she could get onto a series of memory sticks in five minutes, she did, and all before she ran as fast as she could out of his house to freedom.

Blood pounding in her head and dripping onto the pavement behind her, she knew if she was stopped to go to hospital, Mikami would quickly locate her – and then, to spite her, keep her captive properly. Her muscles screamed for rest, deteriorated as they were by her formerly comatose state. This was the most strain they had endured since before Takada had drowned her, yet she refused to stop running.

She banged her fists on the gates of Wammy's like a maniac and shrieked for them to open the gates. Even then, she knew no one was listening, and spared a crimson-tinged glance for her fresh, self-inflicted wound. It was as though she had dipped her entire arm in blood, and her clothes were also soaked with it, both hers and Rebecca's, clinging to her together.

Her breath short and her will dissipating, she permitted her hands to slide from around the metal gates and her legs to collapse.

**XXX**

Tom did not know he was not the only one seeking a route back to Wammy's that day, and had he waited but fifteen minutes, he would have found Claire's corpse at the orphanage gates. He also would have perhaps saved Rebecca Powell's life. Immediately, he recognized the new Zapped member and scooped her up to fly her clumsily over the gates. After that, he ran towards the front door and yelled for urgent help.

Watari and one of the matrons were the first to arrive on scene and see their two battered young friends, one ripped apart by his own wings, the other gored by her own desperate actions. The matron's face was stricken with horror at the new development.

"I don't know what happened to her," Tom said as they carried her to the infirmary to contain her blood loss. "I just found her outside the gates."

"It's lucky you did," Watari told him. "Leave this to the infirmary staff now. They will help to stem the bleeding, and probably give her a transfusion. We pulled her blood type from her medical records."

"Who else is here?" Tom asked.

"Near, Matt, Mello, Lara, Matsuda and B," the older man explained, "although in varying states. This may be a lot to take in, but Phantom has crippled the team. Near is paralyzed below the waist; Mello's anger issues are at an all-time high; Lara might have brain damage and Matsuda is experiencing vivid night terrors. Matt pretends not to be fazed by it all, focused as he is on the work at hand, but I have known that lad since he was a boy, and when the House is at its most silent at night, I have heard cries from his room. He fears for their lives, and we are no closer to finding out the truth, or the culprit."

"I think I may have something to help."

Watari's eyes lit up with hope as Tom handed him the memory stick Rebecca had gotten from Mikami's computer.

"I know who's doing this; there's only one true culprit. Get the information to Near. The guy's name is Teru Mikami and he's predominantly a prosecutor for the law firm I work for. A girl in my building got these documents for me from his computer, and they should hopefully confirm my suspicions. Mikami's a twisted sort and if he's got the power I think he has, then God help us."

"Come with me."

Watari had Tom explain his theory to Near, who eagerly listened and continued to research Mikami in order to hack his computer for the rest of the files and toil through his work to gain enough evidence to hunt the man down and understand his methodology.

A few hours after Tom had arrived, he resolved to check in on Claire, who was asleep a blood transfusion. He figured that someone would have said something if she had died, giving him time to finally slow his brain down somewhat. She looked so tiny and breakable in the bed, so much sicker than most people he had ever seen in hospital. When he gave her hand a squeeze, her eyes opened in panic and tried to wriggle her way out of the bed.

"No, no, stay where you are, it's just me," Tom reassured her. "It's Tom."

"Am I dying?"

"You lost a lot of blood, but you're going to be okay once you've had some rest," he said. "What the hell were you thinking, cutting your arm open?"

"He put a tracker in there," she croaked, "so I couldn't go anywhere without him knowing. I cut it out."

"He? What? Who would put a tracker in you?" And yet, as soon as he asked, he knew the answer.

"Mikami."

"Why… did he keep you?" It seemed ludicrous, that out of all of them, she would be chosen to stay with Mikami himself. When he thought about it, there was some sense to it. She was easily the biggest outsider of the group. Her power was limited but she had a lot of knowledge she shouldn't have had. Besides, it would be a massive blow to the Zapped to lose somebody with such intimate knowledge of their inner workings and their powers. This was not the answer he received.

"He likes to break things."

Tom frowned, still unsure, and stood up to get a better look at her.

It was not just her arm that was wounded on a more thorough inspection – her whole body, or what he could see of it, was covered in marks. Hesitantly, he moved aside the collar of her shirt and what he saw confirmed his worst fears for the girl in front of him.

"That _cunt_," he hissed.

There was a repellent combination of hickeys and real bruises, a severe territorial scar. What disgusted Tom most beyond all measure of rationality was not the clawed red lines on Claire's arms or the cut on her bottom lip. It was the bite marks that had dug in so hard she had bled.

"I'm going to kill him," he snarled.

"Thomas McElroy," Claire sneered, "you can fucking well get in line."

* * *

><p><em>Seems attention to this fic is long overdue.<em>

_'Cleithrophobia' is a fear of being trapped and 'amychophobia' is a fear of being scratched._

_C._


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